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Android 16 now lets all Pixel phones use fingerprint unlock even when the screen is off
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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You're always touching your screen, which means that random apps can capture your fingerprint too.
Yes, some third party apps out there scan the fingerprint sensor too. If the sensor is on the screen, then any random app can detect your fingerprint at any given time.
My phone has a dedicated sensor on the back, so if any random app wants my fingerprint, I can just uninstall that particular app without having to worry that it's scanning my fingerprint every single time I touch the screen.
Ah I see the concern there. Fingerprint data isn't handled as much on the software side as it is through the hardware. Android doesn't get access to what's actually scanned, just whether a scan was read and if it matched what the reader was expecting, Scanners are limited to a certain number of entries depending on how much space is available to store fingerprint data, which is why my 256gb phone can only store 4 fingers. It's also why you can't add separate fingers in separate apps, they all use android's API to determine whether a biometric scan was a success or not.
Really? Really?
My phone only has 64GB storage, and it allows 5 fingerprints. Hell, I just added one of my toes as a test to confirm.
You got a device with 256GB, and they subtracted a fingerprint? What the fuck?
New devices will remove features, and you'll fucking like it...
Tradeoff between speed & accuracy vs the amount of fingerprints. The data that would've been required to store a 5th is instead used to have better models of the other 4. Id rather have a faster reader that'll read it right in more angles than an extra fingerprint when I only really use my thumb and index anyway. (Also you can totally train 2 different fingers in one "finger" and it'll recognize both, just worse
It literally took me less than 0.1 seconds to unlock my 7 year old phone with my toe.
How impatient are you? FFS, the technology has been out there and pretty well refined for decades.