There was already a case with this same fingerprint outcome a few years ago. Biometrics are not protected from seizure.
However, passcodes still are. Last time I checked you cannot be compelled to surrender your passcode locking your phone.
Which is also why both iPhone and Android have panic/lockdown modes.
For my android, if I rapidly tap the fingerprint reader or the power key five times in a row, it locks down and will only be unlocked with a password. I understand iPhones have this same activation method too. Different Android models might have different activations, so you’d have to check the settings.
You can also just hold the power key and shut the phone down, because it’s pretty standard now that upon a reboot you have to put in the pin first before you can use fingerprint.
Which is also why both iPhone and Android have panic modes.
When you are encountering police that would be seizing your phone in the near future, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND AGAINST quickly shoving your hand in your pocket to try to lock your phone.
Whoops. Apparently my android version has 5x power button pressed call 911.
It does require a pass code on hard power cycle though, which is what I use when going through security (when I remember)
Edit - holding power and volume down shuts the phone down
Hah. Did the same thing. Hit cancel right away. I’m sure there’s a setting to change that.
Also, you can add a “Lockdown mode” button in the power menu where there are Power off and Restart buttons. No need to power off that way.
You can also just hold the power key and shut the phone down
Not on Android 14 at least, if not 13. They moved it to your slide-down menu, hold power is the assistant these days.
You might be able to change it in settings, but that’s the default.
On OneUi holding the power button still brings me to the restart, power 9ff, emergency, medical info menu.
Edit to add: Android 14, OneUi 6.1
Out-of-the-box it’s set to Wake Bixby, but it can be changed to Power off menu. One of the first things I changed when I got my phone.
Just made me almost call 911 trying it, gave me a real spook. At least I know how to quickly call 911 now
Edit: in LineageOS 21, this is configurable under Settings > Safety & emergency > Emergency SOS
Same happened here. Didn’t even know the emergency SOS mode was a thing.
I just tried this on my iPhone and it worked like a charm.
For my android, if I rapidly tap the fingerprint reader or the power key five times in a row, it locks down and will only be unlocked with a password.
Mine just starts the camera app 😂
I probably changed the setting and forgot 😅
Where do you get that? I can’t seem to find it.
This is becoming a grey area.
In several states, especially where CBP is involved, there are legitimate challenges to this protetion.
Even so, biometrics SHOULD be protected under 5th amendment. The fact that it isnt seems very anti-freedom.
give us your password
“I cannot recall”
Or are we not rich enough for that line?
I’m glad my passcode is 1 2 3 4 5!
They will never get that out of me!
Stay out of my luggage!
And my air shield!
Biometrics are ids like a username, not secret and something you can’t change. Using them for passwords has risks.
What happened to being secure in our documents and personal affects?
Is the constitution a joke to you?
US “constitution” sounds honestly like a joke to me
Payne conceded that “the use of biometrics to open an electronic device is akin to providing a physical key to a safe” but argued it is still a testimonial act because it “simultaneously confirm[s] ownership and authentication of its contents,” the court said. “However, Payne was never compelled to acknowledge the existence of any incriminating information. He merely had to provide access to a source of potential information.”
If you can be compelled to hand over a key to a safe, I can see how that translates to putting your thumb on the scanner.
In this case, the defendant was on parole, so there was already a court order allowing the search of his devices.
The constitution is only used to protect property rights of the owners and the power of managers. The working class is not often afforded it’s protections.
Never use biometrics to lock anything. You can be forced to push a finger to a sensor, or your head forcibly held still for a facial scan.
Only use passwords/passcords. only they are secure against this totalitarian bullshit.
They’ll still put you in jail on fake charges if you refuse to give your passcode, but at least your datas safe and now your case is unlawful imprisonment instead of relying on octogenarian judges thinking its okay to force compliance with a biometric.
Only use passwords/passcords. only they are secure against this totalitarian bullshit.
Oh sweet summer child. Password is as easily beaten out of you as biometric.
If we’re talking about a situation where they can just straight up beat you legally until you give them a passcode, then what’s on your phone likely doesn’t make a difference in the outcome.
Oh it does. It could be some information throwing shade on other people
Don’t use biometrics.
Period.
Full stop.
I feel like this has always been the case? There’s not a lot of precedence to be sure, but people have been operating under that assumption for a long time.
That’s why, if you need to keep the cops from looking in your phone, you should use a password. Can’t be compelled to give a password.
The classic example is a safe. There’s tons of court precedence that you can be compelled to give the cops a physical key to unlock it if there is one, but you can’t be compelled to tell them the combo if it’s a dial lock.
Fingerprint unlocking is always secondary to there being a pin which is equivalent to a password.
As long as you turn your phone off before approaching/being approached by cops, or before they demand that you unlock it, you’ll be fine. You don’t even have to take it out of your pocket or look at it to turn it off, just hold the power button for a few seconds.
If you’re even more paranoid, enable the setting that requires a PIN code to reactivate the fingerprint unlock after 30 minutes or something.
Or force it to demand the pin after a single failure of the fingerprint unlock and then let your finger kind of slip when they tell you to unlock it.
There are countless ways to mitigate the risks here. You don’t have to forgo fingerprint unlock entirely.
I use tasker to automatically lockdown my phone if it experiences too much acceleration. I figure that if I’m being thrown to the ground, I probably want to lockdown my phone. A sharp tap on my pocket works pretty well too.
Or instead of powering off, enable lockdown mode.
Finally someone that commented with a keyword I could search for in my settings (Samsung). Thank you!
But Gym Jordan can ignore a congressional subpoena. Chyea I’m not giving my thumbprint.
Is there a way to set up multiple user profiles for the same phone, activated by different prints/PINs?
Then you could have your main profile unlocked by like your ring finger print; but if you scan your thumb or index, it’ll unlock basically a dummy account with some bullshit apps and contacts and nothing else.
Like the phone equivalent of a throw wallet with a few bucks and an expired credit card or two so you have something to surrender in the event of getting mugged, without losing anything of actual value.
I don’t know of how to do that without visibly switching accounts, but I believe the GrapheneOS folks are prepping a “duress PIN” for the next major release. I’m not 100% sure of what it entails but could have a similar end result to what you’re after
That would be cool enough to get me off my ass tbh
The problem there would be if they have told you to unlock the device and you do something to further lock it down, and they can prove that you did that (like there’s some big letters on the lock screen that say “lockdown initiated” or something), that can be considered obstruction.
To picture it another way, imagine you had the one key to your vault, they order you to unlock it, and you swallow the key.
It’s kind of in the same way that you can destroy evidence at any time until an investigation has started or you have a reasonable belief that one is about to start. At that point, destroying the evidence would get you in trouble.
Depends a bit on your threat model I suppose. Journalist protecting a source? Probably helpful. Getting mugged? Helpful for preventing ID theft, but potentially increased risk of physical harm. Political dissident covering up regionally unprotected speech? Obstruction charge may be less harmful than the alternative. Wall Street trader shredding insider trading documents? Obstruction charge may be worse.
This is a gross oversimplification but shows how it could be helpful even if it isn’t ideal in every situation.
BlackBerry devices had this.
They had a “under duress but unlock” PIN and a “under duress and wipe device now” PIN. You needed their enterprise management server to configure it.
this is the way.
regardless of what the law says, at least where i live, cops will compel you to unlock it anyway if they decide to. this feature is a must.
Don’t use fingerprint to unlock phone. They can force your fingerprint, but they can’t force your password … So just use a password. Problem solved
Edit: wow pulptastic shared this gem: Power+volume up > lockdown
My original comment: Restart your phone if they ask for it. Then it will need a passcode and can’t be unlocked by a fingerprint
They can beat the shit out of you - along with the password
So when comes the ruling that they can just straight up execute you without having to do the hustle of a fake investigation on themselves?
Justice has a price. That price is freedom
Yikes. imagine actually believing something like that
It’s a quote from judge dread. Seems it went over pretty Badly :(
True. The price of both justice and freedom is blood, but it’s been a long time since the common person thought that way.
ACAB
All courts are bastards?
All Canadians are Bipedal
Well that’s ablist. :P
This reminded me, sorta unrelated but the ff14 community is incredibly ableist when it comes to gameplay. Don’t you dare mention combat macros cause they’ll all start screeching at you. Never mind that you have arthritis and carpal tunnel and just want to play without much pain from spamming.
Even the wow community wasn’t bad at this, plenty of sites and people willing to help, iirc they even helped a quadriplegic play wow.
The only time I ever saw mention of macros being an issue I ever saw was from super sweaty guilds, where every ounce of performance was needed. During any sane, reasonable play session, I’ve never seen anyone mention them.
I’ve encountered it in the wild a bit. Most of the time it’s regular people parroting the sweatys but it’s still ableist. Even my lovely but terrible gamer girlfriend told me I shouldn’t use combat macros and then I lovingly told her she sucks and that some macros could help her. She often forgets to use ogcd spells and I weaved a couple in her regular filler spell. Her dummy damage actually went up. I’m all for doing stuff that help people regardless of the reason.
I don’t even think anyone would ever notice in a regular play session. Which makes it weirder they get all aggro about it online.
I may have just stopped too early to have gotten it in game. I only got to… The one after heavensward lol. But yeah, anyone who wants to complain about it, they can pound sand lol
I cannot hear the word bipedal without thinking of Metal Gear lol. Idk why, it’s not like they’re the only giant bipedal robots in fiction
!
Turn on pin-secured boot and shut off the phone and a fingerprint should be useless now, right? And don’t the cops have a lot people’s fingerprints on record? Are we just waiting for a cop with a higher than room temperature IQ to come up with a duplicating method to get in people’s phones without warrant or even probable cause?
The initial pin that most folks have to enter is needed to decrypt the partition with user data. This is not 100% foolproof for keeping LEOs out since there are many known, and likely more unknown, ways to brute force these but it is still the best option.
If you have the time?
Turn your phone off before handover. They require pin at power on, which at least at this time cannot be compelled.
One second officer, let me just power down my phone real quick.
What percent of arrests do you suppose happen with SWAT storming your house with flashbangs?
No idea. But it’s worth considering that there are cases where you might not have the opportunity to power it down.
And what are the percentage of those cases?
The percentage is non-zero. But if you are really concerned about the percentage, you probably shouldn’t rely on this method. It’s a judgement call.
Fuck America
Clearly we need a finger print to wipe it.
Thumb to open, middle to initiate wipe.
And for face unlock: blink SOS in Morse code to wipe.
Too long.
At the point that they have ordered you to unlock the phone, an investigation has begun, so if you do anything to the data on that phone, it could be considered destroying evidence.
Kind of in the same way that if the cops are searching your home and you try to flush some cocaine, they would consider that destroying evidence. But if you flushed cocaine the moment you saw cops on your street, that wouldn’t count as destroying evidence, because there was no investigation at the time.
This person was on parole and got pulled over by the highway patrol. No investigation.
I’ve always wondered why phones don’t have a locked dowm “guest mode” that’s accessible by typing in a non admin password/pin.
Some do. You can also just restart a phone real quick and it’ll demand your passcode not biometrics.
The passcode itself isn’t circumvented by this, after all.
But locking/resetting your phone should be an urgent thing, if you suspect the police will take it. Apple also does this if you hit the power button 5 times fast.
Samsung phones have a lockdown mode you can get to when you keep the power button pressed (like when you want to shut down). The legal situation is the same here in Germany - fingerprint unlock can be forced, regular pin or other measures not.
FaceID can also be forced, they aren’t allowed to force you to give up anything you “know” as in pin/password/pattern etc.
