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LETTER OF THE MONTH
Will the introduction of biometric identification mean you have to keep dabbing the dabs off your devices?
Wipe off your prints
I found Dr Peter Bentley’s Reality Check article on passwords (June, p36) very interesting. My mother is 88 years old and is a convert to the fingerprint form of self-identification. But I’ve begun to wonder whether this form of security is actually as good as the article stated.
A finger that’s pressed against glass or plastic will leave residue on the material from sweat and skin oil. The police have, for decades, used techniques to identify and record fingerprints left at crime scenes using these residues. It’s not far-fetched, I believe, to imagine that the criminal fraternity would have access to the same technology, or certainly a version of it. Once captured, the fingerprint could be replicated on soft plastic with the use of a 3D printer and then used on a stolen smartphone or tablet.