From the Virginian-Pilot:
A Circuit Court judge has ruled that a criminal defendant can be compelled to give up his fingerprint, but not his pass code, to allow police to open and search his cellphone.
The question of whether a phone's pass code is constitutionally protected surfaced in the case of David Baust, an Emergency Medical Services captain charged in February with trying to strangle his girlfriend.
More below the fold.
Why is this important?
You can unlock some models of phone and computer now with a fingerprint or other biometric information, and this ruling means you can be compelled to do so, while refusing to divulge a password or PIN code is protected.
This ruling wasn't wholly unexpected -- Wired Magazine speculated that this would be the case last year:
While there’s a great deal of discussion around the pros and cons of fingerprint authentication — from the hackability of the technique to the reliability of readers — no one’s focusing on the legal effects of moving from PINs to fingerprints.
Because the constitutional protection of the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees that “no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” may not apply when it comes to biometric-based fingerprints (things that reflect who we are) as opposed to memory-based passwords and PINs (things we need to know and remember).
The ruling also solidified the idea that you cannot be compelled to turn over a password, PIN, or any other memorized "unlocking mechanism".
Judge Steven C. Frucci ruled this week that giving police a fingerprint is akin to providing a DNA or handwriting sample or an actual key, which the law permits. A pass code, though, requires the defendant to divulge knowledge, which the law protects against, according to Frucci's written opinion.
Should be interesting to see how the appeals process plays out on this matter.