These British brothers have posted a video in which they claim to show a flaw in Apple’s new Face ID system. The siblings show an iPhone being unlocked by both of them, despite the fact that the feature only supports one registered face.
Face ID, which ships with Apple’s newest flagship phone, iPhone X, replaces Touch ID as a method of unlocking the device.
Elder brother Mark Garland told Storyful: “I received the phone on Friday, November 3. Set it up with just my face since it was my phone. I used it that day and evening. Went to bed. I used it the next morning as well. I then went downstairs and put it in the side in the kitchen when my brother asked if he could have a go. He picked it up and told me it just unlocked. I didn’t believe him so asked him to show me. It unlocked again. I was very shocked, so we took a video and put it up. [I] got a lot of comments saying it was fake. so made another video with the mirror which clearly shows there was nobody else behind the camera.”
The Face ID feature has been subject to plenty of articles, blogs and attempted hacks in the short time since its release. It is possible to swap halfway through the face scan required to set up the feature, so that two faces are included in it. This was tested out by EverythingApplePro, but they could not get it to work.
Elsewhere, Mashable tested Face ID and reported that identical twins were able to unlock the same iPhone. Perhaps the Garland brothers look more identical to an iPhone than a human.
Apple, for its part, says the chance of a false positive for Face ID is one in a million, compared to one in 50,000 for Touch ID.
Bloomberg reported on October 25 that “to boost the number of usable dot projectors and accelerate production, Apple relaxed some of the specifications for Face ID.” However, Apple disputed this, with a spokeswoman saying, “Bloomberg’s claim that it reduced the accuracy spec for Face ID is completely false.” Credit: revorocks123 via Storyful
