Face-scan unlocking. Seems like magic. No more remembering passwords or having your thumb used to open your device when you’re unaware. This is the future, right? Well, yes, but just because there’s this new-fangled biometric security doesn’t mean you can stop being vigilant. Nevertheless, this new technology opens up debate on the usefulness of various authentication measures for devices. I’m going to focus on one particular factor: convenience.

We all fear it. Dropping our phones. Seeing the tell-tale signs of a massive crack across the screen, or even worse; the phone failing to boot up at all. Our first instinct in these horrible situations is to try and get it fixed. After all, no one wants to pay hundreds of pounds to rectify what can be solved with a fraction of that, right?

You’re probably being tracked right now. Your location, your preferences, your political beliefs, what you search for, who you communicate with, what you communicate about. The possibilities and (and data) are practically endless. And this process is accelerating rapidly. Essentially, companies all over the globe are trying to build a dossier on you with all of this data and then sell it to the highest bidder. They want to treat you as a guinea pig which they can monitor and test at will. Seems a bit degrading? Don’t worry; there’s a solution.

Smartphones. How could we live without them, right? The average person unlocks their smartphone 80 times a day. 80! The mixture of power and convenience is just so useful. It’s no wonder companies are applying this technology to all sorts of appliances nowadays that you wouldn’t normally associate with being “smart”. Smart fridges, smart watches, smart toys. I could go on and on. It’s all about moving to the “internet of things”, designed to make our lives seamlessly integrated with the latest internet technology. By the end of 2017, consumers will be using 5.2 billion connected things, according to Gartner. That number is set to more than double to 12.8 billion by 2020. Seems great, right?