How Secure Is the New iPhone's Fingerprint Security?

[Guest]

The biggest news from Tuesday's (Sept. 10) Apple's iPhone 5S — from a security perspective, at least — is that it will let users unlock their phones using their fingerprints instead of passcodes. Called Touch ID, the feature can also be used to authoriz

How Secure Is the New iPhone's Fingerprint Security? : Read more

 

[Simon MacArthur]

Knowing Apple, your fingerprint is probably being sent directly to the NSA for filing, just in case.....

 

[jskitt2000]

@Simon MacArthur.....According to Apple, the fingerprint/s are stored locally, on the A7 chip only. So theoretically, if the device is encrypted locally, and the encryption key is also encrypted on the devices only, then NSA will not have access to it. Now, if there is a back door built in for the NSA....thats another story!

 

[jskitt2000]

@Simon MacArthur.....According to Apple, the fingerprint/s are stored locally, on the A7 chip only. So theoretically, if the device is encrypted locally, and the encryption key is also encrypted on the devices only, then NSA will not have access to it. Now, if there is a back door built in for the NSA....thats another story!

 

[jgreenfield61]

The real issue is how well we trust Apple to not give others access to the phones. I'd like some independent entity we trust to test, analyze, and verify the security of the device - maybe two or three entities would be even better. If they all come up with the same positive conclusion, we'd all be more comfortable.