This has been the case for a long time (predating cell phones).. and it applies to any biometrics. If the information they need isn't secured inside your brain, there's no 5th amendment question.
SCOTUS already ruled in Riley v California that you need a warrant to search a cell phone. So that answers the 4th amendment question. It doesn't apply in this case because he was on parole.
This case changes nothing.
This was a felon on parole. He doesn't retain his full rights. The warrantless search of his home would be far more problematic if he wasn't already subject to supervision.
Powering down was made easy to defeat biometric ID. Hold buttons on both sides of newer phones.
Passcode is required to unlock.
Passcodes are vulnerable to shoulder surfers, and every now and then iOS will demand one for chuckles. For me, this only happens in crowded stores.
As has been suggested elsewhere, it would be great if certain actions could be taken by the device if the 'wrong' fingerprint is used.
For instance, you encode one fingerprint to silently wipe all biometric data on the phone when used. No indication that it happened, just a 'biometric verification error' for all biometrics going forward (until the device is unlocked and new biometrics are encoded).
Can the police force you to open your eyes for FaceID? If not, you can enable that setting and it’d lock the phone.
Same reason I don't use facial recognition either.
"the outcome ... may have been different had [the officer] required Payne to independently select the finger that he placed on the phone" instead of forcibly mashing Payne's thumb into it himself
Next mobile OS feature: shuffle eligible fingers regularly so users get to pick.
I personally don’t use it because the sensors are always fiddly and if I am in an emergency I don’t want to struggle opening my phone.
What I want is biometric plus 3 tries 4 digit PIN -- OR a long passphrase.
Face ID for the win :) Good luck using the same powers to force people into not keeping one eye closed.
The phone should have two fingerprint sets. One will unlock, one will super lock. User your left finger for super locking, and right for unlock. then when the cops mash your thumb it super locks it, and after that mashing won't work.
Aside:
have you noticed
> assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer
Somebody please make a transformer base semantic checker that highlights "you must really have meant this other thing, with high probability, please check". There is money in it, and service.
(Do NOT implement trusted approval of all suggestions though! Times are dire and that would clearly be dangerous.)
I don't bother to lock my phone as there's nothing on it of importance—no emails, no social media posts, no bank payments or such.
If lost, I'd lose a perfectly good phone but not much else and that would be inconvenient and I'd need a new SIM. As for data, I could potentially lose records of calls and SMS for a day or so as anything useful is backed up. I lost a valuable HTC once and never changed anything, no worries about accounts being stolen as there were none and I just canceled the SIM.
If I were a crim I'd would go to much more trouble to ensure that there was nothing on my phone to incriminate me. So I remain perplexed why crims take such obvious risks when it's well known the first thing the Law will want is their phone, and second, the Law will eventually gain access to their phone locked or otherwise.
If you think you're about to enter a situation where this could be an outcome, for an iPhone, mash the side button, or hold the side button and volume up for a couple seconds to bring up the 'slide to turn off' screen. That will disable the biometric unlock and the passcode is needed to get back in.
Of course, it's sad it has to come to this, as this is effectively a warrantless search.