Fingerprints Not Passwords
The cluster debates the misuse of fingerprints and biometrics as secure passwords, emphasizing they function better as usernames or identifiers due to their unchangeable nature, spoofing vulnerabilities, and presence in public databases. Users advocate for traditional methods like PINs and highlight risks of coercion and permanence.
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Surely it's not just storing a .png of your fingerprint.
If you use fingerprint to confirm username, you have to have an alternate means to do that, because fingerprints can be destroyed.
It's the "which finger" that becomes similar to a password, not the fingerprint (ianal)
Fingerprints are neither really suitable as usernames (because you can neither guarantee that users have them or that thhey don't change outside of your and the user's control or, really, even that they are unique, though they are conventionally assumed to be so) nor passwords (because they aren't secret, can't be changed if compromised, etc.)
Shouldn't they just do a fingerprint scan then?
Touch based are not better. Your fingerprint is not a password, it's just an identifier and shouldn't be treated as a secret.
Because this is the assumption behind using fingerprints as authentication.
A fingerprint can be a personal password or it can be a government ID, but it can’t be both. Since the U.S. government already has something like 200 million fingerprints on file, and many foreign governments collect fingerprints whenever you travel, these fingerprints are sometimes leaked en masse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of
That's not how fingerprint scanners normally work I'm afraid...
Biometrics are not secure. see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34913240