Slate: Biometrics vs. the Fifth Amendment

Slate: Biometrics vs. the Fifth Amendment by Josephine Wolff:

When you think about digital privacy (if you think about digital privacy), the section of the Constitution that most immediately comes to mind is probably the Fourth Amendment—you know, the one that promises that the government needs probable cause and a warrant to arrest you or search your house, papers, and effects (as well as your phones, computers, and hard drives).

But there’s also a set of debates centered instead on the Fifth Amendment and when the government can force you to decrypt those seized devices. That was already a messy issue with a lot of disagreement between different courts, but a judge in California issued a ruling last week that makes compelled decryption even trickier to sort out using the Fifth Amendment.

ABA Journal: Compelling biometric features to unlock phones is ‘abuse of power,’ US judge rules by Jason Tashea

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