Are you ready to surrender your fingerprint to a tech company? If you are, have you thought about what it means for you or if it means anything at all?
Tech companies are always looking for an edge, something that will set them apart from other companies.
Apple recently dropped its iPhone 5S on the market, and they made the standard upgrades to the hardware as well as some new software updates. But the new feature that has everyone talking is the security feature that uses your fingerprint to allow access to the phone.
Apple says that your fingerprint will be safe, saying users’ fingerprint information will be encrypted and stored securely on the new A7 processor chip instead of Apple’s iCloud. Apple also said that it will not allow third-party applications to access the scanner.
But how long will it be before Apple folds and allows these third-party companies access?
I can see it now. All your apps (i.e., Twitter, Gmail and Facebook) will ask for your fingerprint instead of your username and password. They will tell you it is for convenience, but it will only spiderweb from here.
Companies like Facebook and Google are already giving your information to other companies, so your fingerprint could be next. Companies like this also have hackers attacking them all the time, and if they get your fingerprints, I think we all know that it would be downhill from there.
There are only a few things we have that are truly unique to us as individuals: our retinas, our fingerprints, and our DNA. So maybe we should take the time to think before we hand this information off to other people.
Tuesday, June 24, 2025