about one tenth
Internet headlines are a never-ending source of entertainment, and the recent scare over fingerprinting is no exception. While many stories would lead you to believe that an attacker could use a shotgun microphone to capture your fingerprints while you type, this is not the case. The PrintListener attack is about 27% efficient at capturing partial fingerprints, which is not very useful to an attacker, and the probability of capturing a complete fingerprint is less than 10%.
Fingerprints are also captured not by typing, but by swiping a finger across the touch screen and through the device’s microphone. This means you’ll need to make a large swipe gesture on your phone when making audio calls using Discord, FaceTime, or other chat apps. Someone who has PrintListener software and happens to be on the channel will have a chance to capture your fingerprint sounds, but they won’t be able to capture them if you’re just typing. You may want to avoid using your phone’s swipe-to-typing feature while on a call, or at least use a different finger than the one used for biometrics.
It’s a worrying attack, but you don’t have to worry about your neighbors capturing your fingerprints from afar while you play games.