iPhones in the future may save images and fingerprints of thieves

Apple is reportedly attempting to crack down on iPhone thieves with their newer models, by secretly gathering biometric information on them.

A patent filed by the company, and published today, describes a system that covertly captures a photo and a fingerprint of a phone thief. The fact that Apple has filed a patent means we could even see this feature in upcoming iPhone and iPad models.

According to the filing, the security system would be triggered by someone other than the user attempting to unlock the phone, or a unauthorized access by a third party device. In addition, the patent says the iphone may take “one or more fingerprints, one or more images of a current user of the computing device, video of the current user, audio of the environment of the computing device, forensic interface use information, and so on. The computing device may then provide the stored biometric information for identification of one or more unauthorized users."

However, Apple’s TouchID fingerprint sensor may not yet be at a point where it can read the fingerprint of a thief that accidentally brushes a thumb along the home button. Capturing photos or video on the other hand is much more doable. It need not even be first implemented with an auto-trigger setting, the feature could be activated manually by a user through iCloud. While there are already a few apps that can do this, this would be the first time the feature is built into an iPhone by default, and we could very well see this in iOS in the future.