“By now most know that advanced 3D Facial Recognition is coming to Apple’s high-end iPhone launching in September,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“Once Apple has successfully delivered this next-gen feature, Apple is likely to bring it over to the Mac and today’s patent is all about just that,” Purcher reports. “Apple has been working on both facial and presence recognition for some time now. In a new patent application published by the U.S. Patent Office today, we learn that Apple is working on a sophisticated system that combines both features and much more for future Macs.”
“In fact, the proposed system introduces a security method for Macs that combines presence, face detection routines and motion detection to determine authentication of the user to first login to their system and to wake it up from sleep,” Purcher reports. “Apple further notes that ‘The fusion and detection logic may include the use of neural networks, support vector machines, and/or some other form of probabilistic machine learning based algorithm to arrive at a determination of whether a user is present.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Face ID everywhere!
Power Nap allows your Mac to perform useful activities while it’s asleep. Learn more here.
SEE ALSO:
Apple tests 3D face scanning to unlock next iPhone – July 5, 2017
Apple’s iPhone 8 said to abandon Touch ID fingerprint reader in favor of 3D facial recognition – July 3, 2017
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple’s iPhone 8 will offer highest screen-to-body ratio in industry; lacks Touch ID – July 3, 2017
Breaking Samsung’s iris scanner that supposedly ‘locks’ the Galaxy S8 is laughably easy – May 23, 2017
Copying Microsoft? Uh oh.
Apple has been becoming Microsoft for some time now.
Ummm Apple has had patents on this stuff for years!
Here is the problem with Biometric ID:
Let’s say you have been detained and they demand your password. You can say you do not remember it and they will have to go pound sand unless they have a warrant. If your phone or laptop has fingerprint or face recognition they can compel you unlock it.
This is not a hypothetical argument. Federal agents in the border area (100 miles from any national boundary) have extra legal rights as granted by courts regarding search and seizure and have been steadily getting more aggressive with devices even of people who are obviously American. If you want some random Border Cop trolling your laptop, iPad or iPhone, feel free. This is where I get off the Security theater bus.
And do you have to say which finger? You only get X amount of attempts before your passcode is required. Most people have 10 fingers. They can’t compel you to tell them which finger. Simply use the wrong finger.
However, I do agree with facial detection, but Apple is not stupid. If you don’t think they’ve thought of a way to keep security intact, you aren’t been following Apple closely.
I do not use the Touch ID as it does not work consistently with my dry skin.
I take Synthroid and also work in Healthcare. Between dry skin and washing my hands far more frequently than most, my skin on my hands tends to be dry and does not play well with Touch ID.
Interestingly, the Authentic Eikon USB scanners worked fine- before Apple bought them and shuttered the operation. The Touch ID do not, so I do not use it.
I’m very concerned about how American Border security staff are adopting a more aggressive attitude towards visitors. I don’t have any amazing secrets on my iPhone, but due to the way that iPhones and Macs synchronise data automatically, my iPhone contains passwords and other information for all my financial affairs, medical records and a great deal of other information which I would prefer to remain confidential. I certainly don’t want some asshole of a border security guard insisting that I unlock my iPhone so that they can make a copy of everything on it.
We have already abandoned our plans to visit the USA again later this year and are going to Canada instead and will not be crossing the border into America like we normally would.
Canada is beautiful & lovely – I’ve lived there (in Alberta) for extended periods on projects. And it’s citizens wonderful people for the most part. But if you’re not an illegal trying to scam your way into the States you should have few problems here.
I would have more problems flying an arrogant airline (with an a-hole CEO) like United which seems to excel in making flying as unpleasant and as fraught with peril an experience as possible. I think the airlines in general need a little humbling and start to realize where they’d be without passengers aka cattle (in their minds).
My sister in law lives in London, Ontario, so we visit there as often as we can. Usually, we collect her and then tour part of Canada before crossing into the USA and finally returning to Toronto, but the last time we crossed into the USA, the Border Security Officers were such unnecessarily obnoxious assholes that my wife and her sister have no wish to ever go through that sort of thing again.
We know from first hand experience that Canada is a beautiful, sophisticated and civilised country. I’ve also spent a lot of time in B.C. and have yet to find any part of Canada that has disappointed. Having flown over the Atlantic, it used to be an attractive idea to combine a visit to Canada with a road trip around parts of the USA, but America is no longer the welcoming place that it used to be.
I have no secrets but my privacy is none of the Border Agents damn business. If they have a warrant or probable cause, fine. Otherwise they can behave.
Our rights are intrinsic to us as humans- they were not granted to us by any government. People created government- not the other way around. It is well past time law enforcement was put on a leash.
Furthermore, we do not know how Apple will use facial detection. It might just be a secondary level of security to make sure it’s YOU typing your password, or it’s YOU wearing the Apple Watch or YOU are awake and alert when your thumb is pressed on the fingerprint sensor.
I would assume it would be secondary. They just put the fingerprint sensor into the Macbook Pro, so I highly doubt it’s going anywhere.
THE PROBLEM with Facial Recognition is that it will require the camera. There are enough rogue app developers that like to hide sneaky camera code and spy visually on the user as it is. I keep tape over my camera until I do Skype or FaceTime and then replace it. That isn’t difficult but to require this every time my mac goes to sleep and then wakes will get annoying.
I have Oversight monitoring and it has only come on once in the last 6 months. Maybe something like Oversight to monitor the camera monitoring apps.