The Safety of Face Unlock

Since the launch of the iPhone X in 2017, every smartphone introduced face unlock as a defining feature. It seemed like a new feature, but face unlock was present since a very long time on Android (since 2014)

So why was this feature promoted as a brand new one? Well the answer is Apple. Whatever Apple does, the industry follows. That has been the norm for quite a while now.

There are generally two types of face unlock - infrared and front camera based. Phones like the iPhone X, Poco F1 have an infrared based face unlock, where the infrared sensor fires rays on your face and identifies the user. The front camera based face unlock is used by pretty much every smartphone in the world apart from the two mentioned above. This type used facial recognition to identify the face. This is completely software based.

The problem is, most of the brands say that their face unlock is not entirely secure and robust, and it must be used with due caution. Most of the software based face unlocks can be fooled by a colour image or a 3D model of the face. If face unlock is not completely secure, why keep it as an option in the first place? We have a robust and secure unlock feature in the form of the fingerprint scanner. It has proved to be completely secure and seamless. Then why introduce another mode of unlock which may not be completely secure?

Smartphone brands need to realise that there should be no compromise on the security of smartphones. If a crucial feature like face unlock is not completely robust yet, it should not be implemented or promoted.

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