Note that there are many different types of fingerprint scanning technologies, so a single rule can not be applied to all of them. Yes, many of these sensors may work fine using a prosthesis or a dead person’s finger, but same can’t be done with Touch ID sensor on the iPhone, and here’s why!
Apple’s Touch ID uses two methods to sense and identify your fingerprint:
1) Capacitive – A capacitive sensor works on the little electrical charge running through your skin. All human bodies have some micro magnitude voltage passing through them, and the capacitive technology uses it to sense touch. The same technology is applied in the iPhone’s touchscreen to detect input.
2) Radio frequency – RF also doesn’t respond to the dead layer of skin, they only read the living tissue underneath. RF produces an extremely precise image of your fingerprint, which means a dead finger or a prosthesis is completely useless.
Once the tissue is dead, the finger will lose all electrical charge, thus fail to respond to the capacitive sensor. Along with that, the RF reader will fail to find any living tissues, leaving the phone locked for good.
However, the phones that only look for fingerprints can be opened with a dead finger or even stolen fingerprints from your pictures!
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