Apple’s Touch ID for the iPhone 5s was designed for security, although thanks to innovative developers, we’ve seen it used for other purposes, such as acting as a home button replacement. Now for those with a jailbroken iPhone 5s looking for an alternative use of Touch ID, you’re in luck as a couple of jailbreak tweaks will allow you to use Touch ID as a way to launch specific apps that you might not want random people to be able to access when they open your phone. These tweaks come in the form of AppLocker and BioProtect, both of which share similar functionalities in that they require the user to enter their fingerprint when attempting to open a specific app, say emails, or messages, or your photo gallery.
This is a great way for those who don’t really want to has a pass-coded lock screen, but want to have some protective measures installed for their privacy at the same time. Of course there are some concerns, such as where are the fingerprints being stored? With Apple’s own lock screen solution, the fingerprints are stored on a Secure Enclave of Apple’s A7 processor, meaning that no one should be able to read it.The developer of AppLock claims that the fingerprints are still secure and are stored in encrypted hashes that cannot be read or uploaded online, which hopefully is enough to assuage the fears of those concerned about their privacy and security.
Both AppLock and BioProtect can be found in Cydia and will require a jailbroken iPhone 5s, and given that these tweaks will rely on the Touch ID sensor, it’s safe to say that this will only work the iPhone 5s. In the meantime if you’d like to see the tweak in action, check out the video above which is a hands-on of the tweak put together by the folks at iDownloadBlog.