So Should We Be Worried About Apple’s New Fingerprint-Scanning Technology?


Apple’s long-awaited press conference is set to start at 1 p.m. eastern time, and the tech giant is expected to announce not only a couple of new iPhone models, but some new technology as well—including the not-so-secret fingerprint password feature we’re all salivating over.

Some of us, though, drool out of abject fear that a huge technology company will have the ability to read—and therefore possess—our most identifying marker. But how worried we are seems to be related to how willing we are to entertain potential dystopian Mad Max scenarios.

How Apple handles the storage of fingerprints—after all, the phone must remember them to accept them as a password—will likely be the crux of that willingness. Essentially, either the phone will save a copy locally, or Apple will save them all in a big depository of prints—the latter allowing the company to share info with law enforcement and government agencies. With the government’s surveillance antics at an all time high, that is a legitimate concern.

But is Apple going the biometric route for that very reason? Not likely, considering that Tim Cook and co. are simply fed up with the traditional password system, and have long been looking for that technology’s successor. Biometrics, being inherently unique to the user and fairly secure, is the natural choice.

In fact, it could lead to a slew of new market tech, including aftermarket biometric scanners that attach to current computers and the like. Essentially, whether this technology succeeds on a large scale depends on if Apple’s new phone succeeds.

And that, of course, is up to tens of millions of Apple customers. The power, for once, is in our hands. [FastCo]