Used either as a symbol of victory or as one of peace, the ‘V’ hand gesture using the index and middle fingers facing outwards has long been a part of international pop culture. However, with the advent of high-resolution cameras and advanced AI-powered software, security experts warn that the popular hand gesture could expose people to having their fingerprints copied and used to bypass biometric security measures.
Chinese security expert Li Chang appeared on a reality show last month and used a celebrity’s selfie as an example to show how clearly fingers are visible in a V-sign photo and how such photos can put personal biometric information at risk.
In his analysis, Chang showed that there is a very high probability of fully extracting a person’s fingerprint information when taking close-range shots from under 1.5 meters with the finger exposed directly to the camera, which makes selfies especially dangerous. However, Chang showed that even from distances up to 3 meters, about half of a person’s fingerprints can be extracted, which is where AI software comes in.
During the TV program, Chang shocked viewers by demonstrating how using photo editing software and AI technology to correct low-resolution images made fingerprints, which were blurry to the naked eye, extremely detailed.
“With the proliferation of high-definition cameras, it has become technically possible to reconstruct detailed information about the hand, such as fingerprints, using only the so-called ‘V’ pose,” Jing Jiu, a cryptography professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, confirmed.
Although Li Chang’s experiment went viral on social media, sparking fears of massive security leaks, some experts clarified that stealing someone’s fingerprints and using them to compromise biometric security isn’t that simple. Factors like lighting conditions, camera focus, and image clarity all come into play in the actual fingerprint recovery process, and identity thieves would ideally need multiple photos of the same person to compare fingerprints.
If you really want to feel safe about your biometrics, but just can’t help but adopt the V sign in selfies, Li Chang advises people to blur the tip of their fingers or smooth out their fingerprints using digital editing tools before posting photos on social media.
