Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by acabal 4789 days ago
Not just that, but in lesser-developed countries biometric identification can be dangerous. If you get mugged for your ATM card, you can tell them your PIN and they'll let you go, free to repeatedly use your card until you freeze it. But if you need a fingerprint to authenticate, they're going to let you go too, and maybe with one less finger.

Not really a concern in America, but in other places like Mexico, Latin America, India, Asia...

3 comments

> maybe with one less finger.

Modern fingerprint readers check for temperature and pulse[1]. That doesn't undo the actions of a determined, but ignorant, criminal that saw such a gruesome technique to bypass readers in a movie.

[1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/02/22/fingerprint...

You are forgetting that it only works for your finger sensor. 2FA: your specific finger sensor's token + some key your sensor generates from your fingerprint
> Not really a concern in America, but in other places like Mexico, Latin America, India, Asia...

Well it would be if biometrics became widespread.

India's uID project has the biometrics and identity information of over 327 million civilians. This means they've reached about a third of their goal of creating a nation-wide identity and biometrics database.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Identification_Authorit...