A major difficulty for government today and ever-growing problem for the government of tomorrow is the rate-of-change of technological advancement. For a axiomatic example, consider this from the L.A. Times via MacRumors:
Even with the limited outlines of the inquiry, Brenner said the act of compelling a person in custody to press her finger against a phone breached the 5th Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination. It forced Bkchadzhyan to testify —without uttering a word — because by moving her finger and unlocking the phone, she authenticated its contents.
On my view, this absolutely violates one’s rights against self-incrimination, because I consider one’s phone to be an extensions of one’s mind. As a defense against this sort of government overstepping, I’d like a “Touch Wipe” option to be available, via Robert Graham:
So I propose adding a new technicality into the mix: “Touch Wipe”. In addition to recording fingerprints to unlock the phone, Apple/Android should add the feature where users record fingerprints to wipe (erase) the phone. For example, I may choose my thumb to unlock, and my forefinger to wipe.
Admittedly, the danger here is wiping your phone when you forgot that your index finger wipes and your thumb unlocks. As an alternative, I could see use in having one code for unlocking, one code for wiping. The fear of you wiping your phone may be enough to deter over-zealous government.