Stanford CIS

Police seek to unlock murder victim's phone using 3D replica of fingertips

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"“Here we have a long history of taking fingerprints off glasses, taking pictures of people and doing facial recognition, taking hair samples. If we’re not extracting something from the individual themselves, it’s going to be tough to argue it’s improper,” said Albert Gidari, director of privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet & Society.

That said, law enforcement would still need to follow procedure and seek a warrant to search the device.

For Gidari, this case raises questions about the widespread collection of biometric data.

“These collections and databases need to be the subject of better oversight,” he said. “The government collects a huge amount of biometric data and we don’t have any rules around it. That’s the scarier part. For every one example like this there are 10 things you and I haven’t thought about that they could use [our biometric data] for.”"

Published in: Press , Biometrics , law enforcement , Privacy