That peace sign you do in your selfies could let AI steal your fingerprints for scammers — here’s how
A new security risk has emerged related to selfies, particularly those featuring the peace sign. Researchers have found that scammers can use AI to extract fingerprints from these images, posing a threat to personal privacy and security. This method allows for potential identity theft and financial losses through sophisticated scams.
- ▪Scammers are evolving their methods, now using AI to create deepfake content and impersonate individuals.
- ▪Researchers discovered that selfies with the peace sign can expose fingerprints to scammers using AI.
- ▪Fingerprints can be extracted from selfies taken within 1.5 meters, and even half of the exposed hand details can be stolen from images taken at a distance of 1.5 to 3 meters.
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| Original publisher | Tom's Guide |
| Canonical URL | https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/that-peace-sign-you-do-in-your-selfies-could-let-ai-steal-your-fingerprints-for-scammers-heres-how |
| Publication time | Wed, 20 May 2026 15:52:01 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-20T16:00:03.049Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-20T16:00:03.049Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | l7B3hXkw8qDx |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
AI That peace sign you do in your selfies could let AI steal your fingerprints for scammers — here’s how News By Elton Jones published 20 May 2026 That signature selfie pose could expose you to a major security risk When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Copy link Facebook X Reddit Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Scammers have unfortunately evolved in their methods.Those modern-day scamming methods now involve AI — they’re used to create deepfake videos and photos meant to impersonate people to elicit financial transactions, clone people’s voices for use in phone calls that scare loved ones…
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