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Don't Chop My Finger Off! The iPhone 5S Touch ID Won't Work With Severed Finger

PhilSynowiec

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The soon-to-be launched iPhone 5S and its Touch ID fingerprint sensor has had much controversy over the last few days. The blogosphere has gone into a tumultuous state, wondering whether Touch ID is secure, and possibly if Apple wants our fingerprints. Well it's time to put some stress at ease according to a report from CITEworld.

CITEworld journalist Mary Branscombe reports that the Touch ID sensor goes much deeper than just scanning fingerprints:

With the new sensors you don’t have to move your finger, just press it against the reader. And like the sensor in the iPhone 5S, the sensors that will be in laptops and keyboards and other phones can detect the ridge and valley pattern of your fingerprint not from the layer of dead skin on the outside of your finger (which a fake finger can easily replicate), but from the living layer of skin under the surface of your finger, using an RF signal.

It looks like the iPhone 5S Touch ID will be using the layer of skin under your fingerprint to make sure it's really you, and not somebody that just severed your finger from your body. The sensor will be using an RF signal, recognizing the live layer under the surface of your finger. Hopefully this report will steer iPhone thieves away from not only taking our precious devices, but also one of our Phalanges.

Source: iPhone 5s Touch ID Requires A Live Finger To Unlock, Won?t Work With One That?s Severed From Body | Redmond Pie
 
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