The intent of the fingerprint reader isn’t necessarily to safeguard any data.
The fingerprint, along with iOS 7 (coming to users of iPhone 4 and up, this next Wednesday) is aimed to make a stolen iPhone utterly worthless. Today, if I steal an iPhone, I can reset it and sell it for cash. The customer doesn’t know if it’s my old phone, or a stolen phone.
Next week, in order to release an iPhone from it’s owner’s account, the owner must log into the iPhone or his iCloud account and release the phone. If it’s not released, the owner can track it indefinitely. Will the local cops retrieve it and charge the thief with felony theft? Maybe, maybe not ... depending upon your location and the cops involved. But, the thieves will quickly learn that a stolen iPhone is now utterly worthless.
I understand the intent - not that I believe the machine is truly a brick by the way... There is always a way to circumvent the technology... ALWAYS.
For instance, I just woke up a bricked notebook, and it was truly an art to get it done - Way more white papers and way more forum reading than the box was ever worth... but now that I know how, I know how.
But that aside, the OP was definitely leading one to the idea that the cops could *make* you hand over data by forcing you to print the box, where they cannot force you to divulge the pwd. My statement went toward the idea that it is a moot point, because the data can be discovered by other means anyway... Like circumventing the fingerprint reader by removing the internal storage and accessing directly.
Such tech might keep a snoopy neighbor or wife out of your junk, but it isn't going to be kept away from a halfway decent hacker with his hands on the machine.