> The government already has your fingerprints if you've ever left or entered the country, and they've likely been taken during other periods in your life as well.
So, because it's pervasive, it's absolutely fine to allow it to become more pervasive?
Fyi, I'm approaching 30, have travelled widely, and to my knowledge have never had my finger imprints taken. I see no reason to find this acceptable. Not all countries are as fucked as the US in wanting your biometrics.
> is this feature being touted as a impenetrably secure way to unlock your phone?
That's not the issue, it's the fingerprints themselves that the FSF and many of us are concerned with. Sure, you do leave your fingerprints everywhere you go... but I really can't see a team of spooks dusting down the counters in McDonalds or the handrails in the subway to establish a national database. On the other hand, I can totally see the Facebook mobile app using fingerprints for remote authentication and then the authorities gaining access to that data store.
> If you can't trust the phone vendor, why are you not more paranoid about entering your username/password on the device? What about location data?
1) I can use a password that's unique to the device, my account, my app, or the the colour of my underwear. My fingerprints don't change.
2) Location data is less avoidable because it tends to be a by-product of optimal operation of a mobile device. Even excluded GPS, cell towers can be used to triangulate your position well enough to be useful to advertisers, for example, but that same raw data is totally needed for hand-off between cells and managing network coverage.
3) Again, existing concerns don't make new concerns OK.