Nearly every time I need to use my iPhone, I swipe the unlock bar, and I'm presented with the handheld equivalent of an ATM keypad. Tapping in my four-digit PIN hardly qualifies as work, but I'm not afraid to say that all the micro-irritation over the years has evolved into a macro-annoyance. I need the security of locking my phone. But, dammit, I also just wanna use the thing.
The four-digit PIN has been around since the dawn of the ATM decades ago, which in turn evolved from older mechanical locks. As a result, logging into my iPhone feels like I'm stuck in the '80s. The future wasn't supposed to be like this.
If science fiction has taught us anything, it's that humans are meant to interact with computers using only our bodies, not through tools such as keyboards or mice. Smartphones and tablets have started us down the path toward devices that respond to immediate human contact, but the fingerprint sensor on the new iPhone 5S could be the first real gateway leading to a widespread embrace of good ol' skin as the best form of personal digital security.
>'It's going to become an everyday thing. People are going to learn to trust it'
Al Pascaul
"It's going to become an everyday thing," says Al Pascual, an analyst at research outfit Javelin Security, which specializes in financial transaction tech. "People are going to learn to trust it."
The iPhone 5S is not the first consumer technology to use a fingerprint sensor. For years, PC makers have offered fingerprint readers as a login option for laptops. Some USB drives also let you unlock a machine with your fingerprint. But this sort of thing remains a novelty.
About a year ago, it was revealed that one of the most widely used fingerprint readers was leaving passwords readily exposed, but the problems were always much bigger than that. It just wasn't practical. Typing a long, complex password into your laptop isn't that hard, and you don't have to do it that often.
But a cell phone is different. And if Apple's actually works, it could help spread biometrics -- the use of physical traits instead of PINs or passwords -- across so many other parts of our lives.
In a report for Javelin last year, Pascual found that consumers liked fingerprints more than other biometric options such as face or voice recognition. But using fingerprints as a substitute for PINs requires new hardware. To make a major investment in fingerprint scanners for ATMs, for example, banks need assurance that their customers will actually make the switch. By making fingerprint authentication commonplace, the new iPhone sensor could help drive wider consumer comfort and adoption across industries, Pascual says.
And none too soon, he adds. Any static piece of information such as a PIN or password puts consumers at greater risk than a unique trait such as a fingerprint. While stealing a fingerprint is possible, this is far less likely to happen than someone hacking your PIN. Of course, if a fingerprint is stolen, you can't change it. But, as Pascual points out, social security numbers -- which financial institutions often use as a form of authentication -- are tough to change too. And, like PINs, they're much easier to hack.
The rub is that we don't have much guidance from the government on the use of biometrics for financial transactions, including everything from making an ATM withdrawal to providing a signature substitute when using a credit card (not to mention using a fingerprint-ready phone for making mobile payments). Pascual says that banks deploying biometrics now would be acting on faith that government banking regulators will ultimately bless those efforts, though he's optimistic that the feds will soon come around to fingerprints.
Some federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, have already approved biometrics. Even bureaucrats like iPhones, and though they might take their time with change, they often end up bowing to social norms. If the 5S shows that fingerprints are easier and safer, the idea of what counts as normal could change rather quickly.
