20170921 Warum biometrische Identifikation gefährlich ist

21.09.2017 Warum biometrische Identifikation gefährlich ist

Why you shouldn’t unlock your phone with your face

It's so easy just to look into the camera or to give your fingerprint to open your smartphone - but ...

This article is about the security of facial recognition, and other forms of biometric identification in general.

Historically, biometric identification has been insecure.
Cameras can be tricked.
Voices can be recorded.
Fingerprints can be lifted.
Even to print an iris scan on a contact lense is very simple.

And in many countries — including the US — the police can legally force you to use your fingerprint to unlock your phone. So they can most certainly point your phone at your face and unlock it against your will.

Instead, use a passcode to unlock your phone. It hurts a lot more to change your face than to change your passcode. How many pictures of your face are out there? Could those images be stitched together and 3D-modeled to the degree of accuracy necessary to defeat FaceID?

Let’s take a step back and consider the ultimate biometric identifier of you as a person: your DNA.

Your DNA is just a long string of data. The human genome is 3 billion base pairs. You could store a person’s entire genome in less than a gigabyte — the same amount of data as a single video. And sequencing someone’s genome is cheap. The cost is falling much faster than the cost of computation in general.

If the sequence of your DNA got leaked out into the open, it would be pretty hard to change it.

So don’t rely on biometric identification. There’s a much better answer. And you’re not going to like it. Because it’s less convenient. But it works.
Numeric Passcodes: hard to guess, easy to change, and legally protected

Already with a 4-digit numeric PIN, there are 10⁴ possible combinations. If you choose more digits and if possible letters and special sign you are safe. And to be clear, a court in the US cannot force you to give up your passcode. That passcode exists in your head, and yours alone. It is your property!

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