Should I Give Apple Access To My Medical Records, Too?

... actually, ObamaCare will take care of that problem by digitizing and centralizing the stuff so that's probably a lousy title. Oh well.

Walt Mossberg has his standard Apple fanboy column up today, this one praising the new iPhone and its fingerprint technology. Subtitle: "Fingerprint Technology, New System Make the 5S the Leader of the Smartphone Pack." Walt must never have heard of the NSA.

I'd have to be completely out of my mind to have my fingerprint stored on my phone. Yes, yes, I read about how the fingerprint will only be stored on the CPU and won't ever, ever, ever been shared with anyone else. I'm supposed to trust that? When every big company out there owes its existence to the government, those promises automatically come with expiration dates. The instant some government agency decides it wants access to that data, all they have to do is threaten to enforce this or that regulation on Apple* and poof! no more promise of fingerprint data security.

No iPhone for me, thank you very much.

* - Given how much power has been ceded to the bureaucracy, they can simply rewrite rules to punish defiant companies. No Congressional action is required.