“Since the invention of the password, you’ve been told to keep yours a secret,” Alfred Ng writes for CNET. “Now Apple wants your password to be your most public feature: your face.”
“That may take some convincing. Most people probably haven’t been exposed to facial recognition technology in their daily lives. To the degree they’re aware of it, they may well be suspicious after years of easily tricked facial recognition software and uncertainty about biometrics in general,” Ng writes. “Enter the iPhone X, the 10th anniversary edition of Apple’s flagship phone, and its Face ID system, which scans your face using an array of cameras and sensors to unlock the device.”
“Touch ID had its share of skeptics when it was released, including politicians who raised privacy concerns about biometrics. That was just for fingerprints. Now Apple has to convince you to use your face to get into your iPhone, even as tech companies wrestle with public concerns about security and privacy,” Ng writes. “As with Touch ID, all the data points from your face will be stored on the iPhone X’s Secure Enclave, a part of the phone’s processor with its own encrypted memory. The data won’t be sent to a server that Apple owns, where hackers might be able to break in and steal massive amounts of private information.”
“‘I’ve done reverse engineering and watched the data flow for the Secure Enclave. There is no data being sent anywhere,’ said Pepijn Bruienne, a research engineer with Duo Security. ‘Face ID will be very similar,'” Ng writes. “‘If the user experience is very smooth,’ [Andrew Blaich, a security researcher at Lookout], ‘you’ll see the adoption grow quickly.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Face ID is very smooth and very secure. However, if you’d like, it’s very easy not to use it and simply rely on a passcode. For maximum security in iOS, in Settings > Passcode, tap Passcode Options and use a custom alphanumeric code.