An anonymous reader cites a report from Ars Technica. The Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination does not prohibit police officers from forcing suspects to unlock their cellphones with thumbprint scans, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. Although this ruling does not apply to all cases where biometrics are used to unlock electronic devices, it is an important ruling in an unresolved area of the law. In the U.S. v. Jeremy Travis Payne decision (PDF), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled, “Whether Mr. Payne's forced use of his thumb to unlock his cell phone constituted testimony. It was necessary to address this problem. “To date, neither the Supreme Court nor its sister circuit courts have discussed whether the forced use of biometrics to unlock electronic devices constitutes testimony.”
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled against Payne and upheld the federal district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence. Payne, a California parolee, was arrested by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) after a 2021 traffic stop and charged with possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, fluorofentanyl, and cocaine. The case in district court was over whether CHP officers “used Ms. Payne's thumb to forcibly unlock her phone.” But for purposes of Payne's appeal, the government “accepted defendant's factual assertion that he was 'forced to print his thumbprint.'” Payne's Fifth Amendment claim “is based entirely on whether the use of “implicitly linked certain facts to the police officer'' so that he could avail himself of the privilege from self-incrimination,'' the judgment said. The judge rejected his argument, stating that “being forced to use Mr. Payne's thumb to unlock the cell phone (which he had already identified to the officers) did not require any cognitive effort; “We have placed it firmly in the same category as blood and fingerprint collection at the time of appointment.” “When Officer Coddington used Mr. Payne's thumb to unlock his cell phone, he could have done it even if Mr. Payne had been unconscious, but he had no control over the contents of Ms. Payne's mind.'' There was no trespassing,” the court said.