Wires Computing Electronics & Computer Repair - Burlington VT

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Why do you have to type in your PIN after restarting your iPhone or after a certain amount of time?

Have you always wondered why your iPhone needs a password/passcode instead of being able to use your finger print after a reboot?

“Touch ID doesn’t store any images of your fingerprint. It stores only a mathematical representation of your fingerprint. It isn’t possible for your actual fingerprint image to be reverse-engineered from this mathematical representation. iPhone 5s also includes a new advanced security architecture called the Secure Enclave within the A7 chip, which was developed to protect passcode and fingerprint data. Fingerprint data is encrypted and protected with a key available only to the Secure Enclave. Fingerprint data is used only by the Secure Enclave to verify that your fingerprint matches the enrolled fingerprint data. The Secure Enclave is walled off from the rest of A7 and the rest of iOS. Therefore, your fingerprint data is never accessed by iOS or other apps, never stored on Apple servers, and never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else. Only Touch ID uses it, and it can’t be used to match against other fingerprint databases.”

So that is why. Until you are logged back into your iphone, the Touch ID can’t communicate with the Secure Enclave, making password entry a necessity.