If You Always Do The Peace Sign In Pics, You May Be Putting Yourself In Danger

Are you one of the few people who still hold up the peace sign in photos?

If you're not, there's a good chance you still jokingly make this gesture to make fun of those who do.

Regardless of your habits with the infamous peace sign pose, you're going to want to listen up.

According to researchers at the National Institute of Informatics (NII), when gesturing the peace sign, you could be exposing your most valuable, sensitive biometric information without even knowing it.

The Japan-based institute discovered that a photo containing your peace sign hand gesture can be used to recreate your fingerprint if the photo is clear enough and the lighting is bright enough.

As if having to safeguard our entire lives from malicious hackers isn't already stressful enough, now we can't even snap an innocent selfie without worrying anymore?! DAMN.

The findings also concluded that striking this particular pose from 10 feet away or less puts that biometric information at severe risk.

While this isn't the only way for your personal data to be retrieved against your will, plenty of people make the peace sign in photos and perceive the gesture to be harmless.

However, while the recent findings related to the peace sign may be alarming, it's important to remember your fingerprint isn't typically used for anything other than your iPhone these days.

Furthermore, it would take a highly skilled criminal to access a photo of you and use your peace sign gesture to recreate your fingerprint. They would need to first obtain the required photo and then make an intricate, exact recreation of your fingerprint.

Even then, the job isn't done. The fingerprint thief would then need to have the recreation of your fingerprint molded perfectly before retrieving your smartphone and using the mold to access it.

There's A LOT of room for error in that one equation alone.

In other words, yeah, it's kind of creepy you could be putting yourself at risk with a simple gesture, but don't freak out if you accidentally throw up the peace sign.

The chances of your peace sign selfie on Instagram leading to a security breach of your personal life are quite slim.

If the peace sign is your signature pose and you MUST do it, at least get your Amy Poehler on and shield your fingerprints.

Peace!

Citations: Doing the peace sign in pictures could put your fingerprint at risk, researchers find (Tech Radar)