it's very much NOT foolproof. if you live anywhere where you require even the slightest measure of security, DO NOT use something like this on your front door. time and again, fingerprint scanners have been shown to be easily defeated without even having to go through the trouble (although it is easy) of replicating a latent print.

not that it really matters - few burglars are elegant enough to pick locks, most just kick the door in or use another method of forced entry.

I think this could be useful for locking something within the house. I don't think I'd trust it for serious security.

A fingerprint or bioscan security is only secure so long as you are still in control of (and connected to) that bodypart. creepy.

Melissa, there's no need to actually get your hands on the body part in question. There's a good episode of Mythbusters where they defeat a fingerprint reader without having direct access to the finger in question.

On the other hand, I have fingerprint readers on my desktop PC and my UMPC and I love them. I don't use it for security but convenience. The reader software acts as a password store so I just swipe my finger to log into most sites. I figure that anyone with the access to try to fool the fingerprint reader is going to have posession of the equipment anyway...

hmm sceptical. We used to have bloomberg finger print log ins at work and there was one guy who kept having problems. Turned out he was a rock climber so he would regularly come back after the weekend with scratches across his finger, so the reader wouldnt recognise his print....