KGI Securities has offered an insight into the new release of the Apple iPhone 5s, and that it will include new technology in the form of a fingerprint sensor that will unlock the phone when the iPhone owners fingerprint is matched to the sample fingerprint held in it memory.
Its been no big secret that our phones have been spying on us for years sending information about us back to app makers and the phone manufacturers and service carriers, but now there is a new concern. For the first time a company will be able to have a database of millions of its customers fingerprints, all of which will be able to be accessed by government agencies via an official request or by agreement between the government and Apple.
While Apple will be the first to include this technology in its smartphones you know it wont be long until all manufacturers are offering fingerprint recognition in its products.
Its not to early to be asking some serious questions of Apple and its competitors about what they are going to be doing with our fingerprints, how they will be used, how they will be stored and where, and what safeguards will be in place so our very personal physical information stays personal and not public record. While the FBI and NSA has the worlds largest fingerprint catalog, it would not take very long given the recorded sales of new iPhones to overtake even the FBI. The FBI has spent countless resources in procuring, filing, storing, and cataloging millions of fingerprints. In the case of Apple all they have to do is sit back and watch the fingerprints fill its data centers as we volunteer our fingerprints by the millions.
It is clear Apple will have the ability and the capacity to collect and store this fingerprint information, but will they do the right thing and just not.