Folia (UvA), 14 Feb 2011: 'The sore spot of finger scanning'

"Access with an index finger. In Universum, the ultra-modern main building of the [University Sports Centre, USC], you can only play sports if you first have a finger scan. Easy - you can never forget your pass again - but controversial. (...) The sports centre claims in a leaflet that athletes' privacy remains "excellently guaranteed" and the system is "impossible" to crack, but is that really true?

Bart van der Sloot, researcher at the Institute for Information Law, doubts it: 'Any code can be cracked.' According to him, USC's security may make it difficult, and it takes a good hacker a long time, but it is possible. Vincent Böhre of Privacy First, the organisation that will soon appeal against the state over fingerprinting in passports, is also worried: 'Once your fingerprint is stolen, you're screwed for life. Using a silicone copy, for example, the print can be left at a crime scene. You cannot have a fingerprint blocked.' (...)"

Read HERE the entire article (p. 14) in the weekly Folia of the University of Amsterdam.