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A person suspected of a crime cannot be compelled to divulge to authorities the passcode that would unlock his smartphone. To allow this would be a clear violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

But a fingerprint doesn't share those same protections. At least according to a recent ruling from a Circuit Court judge in Virginia, who found that compelling a suspect to unlock his fingerprint-protected smartphone is just fine and dandy.

There's some logic here, but it's pretty badly flawed. The thinking behind the decision: The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states that an individual cannot be forced to testify against himself. As such, compelling someone to fork over a smartphone's passcode -- which would amount to testimony -- would violate the Fifth Amendment.

But a fingerprint, the judge said, is another story. It's more like a key, which the law has long allowed authorities to obtain from a criminal suspect.

While one can understand the legal distinction that forms the basis for the ruling, it doesn't long hold up under scrutiny.

The Fifth Amendment states, in part: "No person shall be ... compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." This is the right that people are invoking when they refuse to testify on the grounds that they may incriminate themselves.

So legally, a passcode is a kind of testimony, but a key isn't.

Which is fine as far as it goes. But this is exactly where the judge went wrong.

A fingerprint can be akin to a key -- or not. In the matter at hand, what it is, in effect, is a replacement for a passcode, which is information that used to be inside the user's head. If we'd once unlocked our phones with physical keys -- like those that open a door or start the car -- the reasoning would make sense, as the fingerprint would be a replacement for same.

But that's simply not the case. We used to unlock our phones with information in our heads. And that information was protected by the Fifth Amendment. One's fingerprint, simply a replacement for the old memorized pass code, ought reasonably be afforded that same protection.

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Editorial: Applying the Fifth Amendment in the era of smartphones

All Your Fingerprints Are Belong To Us: iPhone Users Forfeit Fifth Amendment
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All Your Fingerprints Are Belong To Us: iPhone Users Forfeit Fifth Amendment - Video

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Your Fingerprints Belong To Us: Iphone Users Forfeit 5th Amendment 1
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Your Fingerprints Belong To Us: Iphone Users Forfeit 5th Amendment 1 - Video

Advances in technology always make for interesting interpretations of established law.

Most recently, a Virginia Beach Circuit Court this week ruled that an individual in a criminal proceeding cannot be forced to divulge the passcode to his cellphone as it would violate the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment. At the same time, the Court held that an individual can be compelled to give up his fingerprint to unlock Touch ID, or any fingerprint protected device for that matter.

The Court reasoned that while a passcode requires a defendant to divulge actual knowledge, a fingerprint is a form of physical evidence, akin to a handwriting sample or DNA that authorities are already legally allowed to demand in certain circumstances. In a similar vein, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that while authorities can compel an individual to hand over a physical key to a locked safe, they can't compel an individual to provide them with a combination to said safe; the key in this example is nothing more than physical evidence while the combination, based on an individual's unique knowledge, is categorized as "testimonial."

Mashable adds:

"It's exactly what we thought it would happen when Apple announced its fingerprint ID," Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization, told Mashable. (Android phones such as the Galaxy S5 and HTC One Max also have fingerprint ID systems.)

While the ruling in Virginia Beach is not as binding as a Supreme Court decision, it does establish legal precedent other local courts can draw on. More importantly, "it's just a good wake-up call for people to realize that fingerprint ID doesn't necessarily provide the same sort of legal protection than a password does," Fakhoury says.

As relayed by The Virginian-Pilot, the ruling stems from a case involving a man charged with strangling his girlfriend. Authorities had reason to believe that video footage of the couple's altercation might be located on the defendant's cellphone and "wanted a judge to force" the defendant hand over the passcode.

The rest is here:
Court rules: Touch ID is not protected by the Fifth Amendment but Passcodes are