Digitally challenged

Finblog's been out of action for the past ten days after suffering a traumatic amputation of the middle finger at the hands of a faulty lawnmower. I'll spare you the gory details, suffice to say the mangled finger-tip was considered not to be viable for transplantation and now resides in a pickle jar somewhere in the dark recesses of Bristol Infirmary.

Fortunately I only lost the one digit, although the finger-print of my index finger has been irreversibly scarred as the rotating blade sliced into the tip and left a nasty gash.

What would be the consequences of such an injury in a future where biometric scanning for the purposes of ID verification was the norm? Would the decapitated finger need to be kept under lock & key - or better still incinerated - to prevent mis-use by unscrupulous hospital staff?

On a more pressing note, will I now be denied entry at US customs, as my fingerprints no longer match those on file?