[news.bbc.co.uk]

As mobile phones get more sophisticated, is a PIN or password sufficient to keep them from prying eyes? Help is at hand or, more specifically, on your fingertips.

…

“There are more and more cases of computers being stolen with critical data,” says Alan Kramer of UPEK, one of the companies developing the technology. “The growth in technological gadgets people carry, and with more and more important data, means the need to secure that data increases.”

Thieves are much easier able to access a device via a password than a fingerprint, he says, and this layer of security can be additionally used to protect the hard drive or any other applications.

I can see it now:

Upsurge In Violent Crime As Muggers Force Victims To Swipe Their Fingerprints.

Government Urges Ban On Knives And Chisels And Other Pointy Things; Opposition Seeks To Outlaw Theft.

Man Participates In Own Mugging: Accused Of Fraud.

Really, why can’t they go back to fixing the economy or something, and drop the “let’s find something new to ban” for a while?

I mean: if spotty little chav teenagers are participating in a wildly over-hyped and under-real craze for committing common assault whilst filming themselves doing it then personally I would be thankful that people stupid enough to perform this “happy-slapping” are reducing the burden of evidence necessary to bang themselves up.

What I would not be doing is talking about banning camera-phones from school because I don’t believe in any form the argument that the ability to record an image is in any form an incentive for stupid, criminal behaviour.

It merely takes stupidity and boredom to do that.