I think the Sony Xperia phones was one of the big proponents of this, where the fingerprint scanner is on the side, integrated into the power button. I never had an Xperia phone but I always thought this was a good idea compared to having it on the back or having it where the home button would be, since when you pick up the phone, your finger should naturally rest on the power button (assuming it’s thoughtfully laid out), and you can also use it when the phone is lying flat on a table, which you can’t do with it on the back.
I know some people are worried about privacy since then you need to use the fingerprint scanner if you want to use the phone, but those people will probably want to buy a non-Android Linux phone like the PinePhone or Librem anyway, and if those get a fingerprint scanner in the future, it will probably have a physical switch that disconnects it electrically, like they do for the cameras.
Personally, I like them over the more common back of the phone location or even the newer under-screen ones, and never under understood why they didn’t take off, but what do you think?
Actually, I just thought of this drawback: payment, in-app purchases, opening password managers, etc now use the fingerprint scanner for authentication. If an app is asking you to authenticate, and you go to turn your phone off with the power button, you could accidentally authenticate when you didn’t mean to, which is a security risk.
I mean, nowhere on a phone is safe enough from unintentionally putting your finger in that place. So, a fingerprint shouldn’t be used as the only confirmation for anything with consequences. There should at least be a confirmation dialog or something like that as well.
Good point. It could easily be solved by the OS just asking you to confirm after scanning your fingerprint.