Everything you need to know about the Face ID on iPhone X
Ever since Apple introduced the new iPhone X, Face ID has been a hot topic all over the tech world. Removing the trademark home button and changing the whole concept of Touch Id with the face recognition feature or Face ID as Apple calls it, is a really bold move by Apple and only Apple could do something like this
There has been a plethora of questions asked all over Quora and subreddits about how touch ID works and all the possibilities concerning it. Questions regarding the security, privacy and all sort of What-Ifs!
Craig Federighi recently did an interview with TechCrunch to define how Face ID works. It’s a must read. I have tried to sum it up in Q&A to make you understand better.
1. How did the Face ID came up to be?
As Phil Schiller described in the keynote, Apple collected over a billion images from people of different races, geography and ethnical prospects to train the system for depth map of faces. This was all done on the subject validation. The system was then trained from different angles to understand the face structure and 3D mapping so that the system can understand the faces better.
Even when you change your look by getting a haircut or plastic surgery or trimming off your beard, the neural engine reiterates your face using machine learning, which is done solely on your iPhone’s processor.
2. How well does the Face ID works?
You know there are times when you take out the iPhone from your pocket and place your thumb and before you know, you have bypassed the lock. It’s that fast but instead this time, you don’t have to place your thumb.
Just look at your iPhone and it works. Face Id can work at any angles or inclination that you use your phone at. It can It records the changes in your face over time and changes the data in accord to that. Even if you’re wearing polarized glasses. It depends on the extent of polarization in the lenses and some lenses don’t let enough IR to go through them. In that case, you will have take off the glasses or just use the passcode.
If you’re blind or vision impaired, the attention feature won’t work in that case. In that case, you can simply deactivate the feature. It’s there. There will be security concerns in this case though. You can still go with the passcode if you don’t want to.
3. How private and secure is the Face ID now that Touch Id is gone?
When it comes your Face ID and the data stored concerning it, everything is stored in a secure chamber on your device. It doesn’t even go to Apple’s cloud to train its engine.
And if any government organization asks Apple for your facial data to unlock your iPhone, Apple doesn’t have a way to do that. It’s all in the secure enclave encrypted that even Apple doesn’t has a backdoor to. It is
You Face ID is secure on your iPhone only on form of encryption that can’t be reverse engineered into a Face and never leaves it.
4. Can we disable the Face ID at some point instantly?
Yes, there will be times like when a police office stops you or a thief is trying to steal your phone. In that case, you can simply squeeze your iPhone from both sides and Face Id is disabled. iPhone 8 has also the same procedure to disable the Face ID.
You just press the lock button along with volume up or down button and the Face iD is disabled and passcode is the only solution in that case.
For models below iPhone 8, pressing the home button 5 times was the solution to this problem.
