The balance between easy and secure is tough, but your finger is the answer

Security is a big deal for a device like a smartphone. You might let someone share your phone once in a while, but chances are it's yours alone and chock full of important information that you need to keep at hand. Since a lot of other people would love to have access to that information, too, keeping it for your eyes only is critical.

You might think you have nothing worth any sort of protection. A lot of people think that way, but it's simply not true. You've probably seen those late-night commercials about identity theft because it happens to all types of people; you don't have to be rich for someone to try to get a loan in your name. Besides that, you probably have other things you'd like to keep a little private. Medical information, financial information, that sort of stuff.

This is why Google's latest effort for password protection on Chrome will go a long way.

Keep the important stuff secure

The sad reality is that it's super easy to get to all this when your phone is in my hands. It doesn't have to be; you can set things up so your phone is locked every time the screen goes off, but there are all sorts of ways to make things more convenient, thus keeping everything up, running, and ready for anyone to see. Most people choose the convenient way because they interact with their phone hundreds (thousands?) of times per day.

The trick is finding a way to keep things easy to use while protecting some stuff from others. Google finally got the message with the Chrome Password manager, and soon it will require you to use your fingerprint or another way to authenticate who you are before it automatically offers to fill in passwords. It's a little late, but better than never.

We need more of this. And no, things like locked folders that you have to set up in advance aren't the way to do it. Your fingertip is.

To be honest, I'm torn on using your fingerprint as a password. To me, your fingerprint is who you are, and more like a username that you can never change. But my unpopular opinion doesn't matter because it's a bajillion times easier than entering a password on a tiny keyboard. Since it's become the norm, though, it's time to use it for anything and everything that's remotely important.

More options are better

Let's say, for example, you use Google Photos. The app comes with a "Locked Folder" feature, but requires you to set it before you use it. It's great that it's there, and I'm not saying that they should remove it in favor of something global, just that a lot of people don't even know about it or will never bother.

What if, instead, when you first used the app, it gave you the option to require your fingerprint to see your photos and instead offered a public folder that anyone can see? If you don't care, just say no. If you do care, it only takes a second to press on the screen or the much better side button some phones like the Moto Razr use.

Now apply this logic to everything.

This is a platform-level task, and while phone makers like Samsung could implement it (Samsung was early to the party with secured folders and storage spaces), this needs to come from Google and Apple. A "simple" layer that sits in between the OS and an app can handle all of it, so we won't have to depend on app developers for any of it.

I know this is wishful thinking on my part, and if anything resembling this happens, it will be in a distant future, but it's still something I'd like to see. Options are good and we love them, provided they're presented well. One more can't hurt, right?