Face ID: One of the most interesting features of Apple's iPhone X is how you can unlock it. The new Face ID feature uses its TrueDepth camera iPhone to view and analyze more of 30.000 invisible dots to create a depth map of your face, which is then read by an infrared camera to finally unlock your phone.
Even in the dark. Even when you leave a beard.
Smartphones exist alongside other gadgets in our digital lives, and anything that can improve security is welcome. We should mention, that there are still people who do not use one code access to lock their phones. But Apple promises that the use of facial recognition will be more secure than the use of fingerprints.
"The chance that a random person could look at your iPhone X and unlock it using your ID is about 1.000.000 (compared to 1 in 50.000 for Touch ID)," says Apple.
The use of technology has bothered some, but some of their security concerns are perhaps a little too exaggerated: in the case of the iPhone X authentication system, there is no single database to hackers because biometric data is stored and encrypted in device itself.
However, there are still some questions:
For a smartphone we can argue that a fingerprint is actually the easiest password replacement: it's less controversial than using your face and maybe even faster.
Face recognition on smartphones will be delayed. First you have to grab the device before you look at it. So unlocking with a fingerprint reader on the back (or side) makes it very easy to unlock the phone by pulling it out of your pocket or taking it off the desk.
Finger or face;
Using a fingerprint, once I look at the phone is already unlocked: facial recognition seems to be a step behind it, because I have to look at the phone before it opens.
Of course, these are criticisms of a particular one application used by Apple, but which can take on larger dimensions. The way facial recognition is used can become a standard way of identification in general, not just when we unlock our smartphones.
If we start using face recognition in a controlled scenario, such as unlocking our phones, we encourage the use of technology and elsewhere where we may have less control.
It's not hard to imagine how facial recognition technology along with extensive surveillance systems installed in most major cities will kill anonymity.
This may be good and maybe not, but it is the kind of change that goes unnoticed into our society when we need to talk more about it protecting our privacy.
And OK, state surveillance does exist and will exist. What will happen when the same technology, another kind of Face ID, starts to be used in Super Markets, always for the convenience of the customer…
