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When Apple introduced the iPhone X, it devoted a large part of the presentation to explaining how Face ID works. The removal of the fingerprint reader was (and still is) difficult for many users, but Apple promised that Face ID was a better solution. Its speed is essentially the same, in some cases better, in others worse, and in terms of security, it should be a solution that is much safer than Touch ID. Apple has mentioned the probability of inaccurate authorization several times. This is precisely why it is clear that all cases of Face ID failure will be thoroughly discussed in the media. However, this last one is a bit strange.

According to Apple, the error rate of Touch ID is roughly 1:50. The error rate of Face ID is then 000:1. It has been proven several times that the new facial recognition system cannot cope very well with, for example, twins who have very similar facial features. This information is also presented by Apple itself, that in the case of identical twins, a situation may arise where your sister/brother unlocks your phone. However, a video of a mother's iPhone X being unlocked with her young son's face surfaced on YouTube yesterday. You can watch the video below.

The video clearly shows how both the owner and her son unlock the locked phone. An explanation of this problem is described in the Face ID document, which Apple released a few weeks ago. It's pretty simple, but if this explanation is true, it's a nasty system-wide bug that could compromise Face ID security.

If Face ID does not recognize the face, but the difference between the sample face and the scanned face is very small, and if you enter the correct password shortly after this failed authorization, Face ID takes another picture of the face and saves it as an authorized record, against which further attempts are subsequently evaluated. 

The entire experiment in the video above has a relatively logical outcome. The owner of the phone set up Face ID on her face, but her son is similar to her (at least in terms of features for the needs of the Face ID scanner) and also knows the password to her phone. It was enough to activate the phone in his hands several times and Face ID learned to recognize his face as well. This led to him being able to unlock the phone. This hypothesis was subsequently confirmed by Wired server, who contacted the woman and after resetting Face ID, her son could no longer access her phone.. until the time when they tried to authorize in poor lighting conditions. From this case, it follows that you should set up Face ID in ideal conditions, as well as the first few authorizations, so that the system perfectly learns the shape of your face.

Source: 9to5mac

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