I have an iPhone X. One of the phone’s features is facial recognition. It’s great. I can unlock the phone and open apps just by staring at the phone’s camera. It scans my face and, presto!, the phone or app is open. If someone other than myself tries to use the facial feature, the phone locks up after two tries and I am required to use my password to move forward.
The iPhone is not the only smartphone with facial recognition. You might own one yourself.
Here’s the not so good news: Consumers’ Association – an association out of Hague – recently conducted tests on smartphones with the facial recognition feature. The tests revealed that 42 of the phones could be fooled into unlocking by simply holding up a picture of the person who owned the phone.
That sort of defeats the purpose, wouldn’t you say?
Just in case you have a facial recognition smartphone and want to know if your picture can fool the software, here’s a list of the 42 phones which failed (courtesy of Consumers’ Association):
Alcatel 1 x
ASUS Zenfone 5 Lite 64 GB
ASUS Zenfone 5, ZE620KL (64 GB)
Blackberry Key2
BlackBerry Key2 (US version)
BQ Aquaris X 2
BQ Aquaris X 2 Pro
General Mobile Vilas
HTC U11 +
Huawei P20 (EML-L29)
Huawei P20 Lite
Huawei P20 Pro (CLT-L29)
Lenovo Motorola Moto E5
Lenovo Motorola Moto E5 (SD version)
Lenovo Motorola Moto E5 Plus (SD version)
Lenovo Motorola Moto G6 Play
LG K9 (LM-X210EMW)
LG Q6 Alpha (LG-M700n)
Motorola Moto G6 Play (BR version)
Motorola One
Nokia 3.1
Nokia 3.1 (US version)
Nokia 7.1
Oukitel VU
Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018)
Samsung Galaxy A8 (32 GB) (SM-A530F/DS
Samsung Galaxy A8 (64 GB)
Samsung Galaxy A8 + (SM-A730F)
Samsung Galaxy J8 Brasil
Sony Xperia L2 (H3311)
Sony Xperia L2 (H3321)
Sony Xperia XZ2 (H8216)
Sony Xperia XZ2 (US version)
Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact (H8314)
Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact (US version)
Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact Dual SIM (H8324)
Sony Xperia XZ2 Dual SIM (H8266)
Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium (US version)
Sony Xperia XZ3
Vodafone Smart N9
Xiaomi Mi A2
Xiaomi Mi A2 (32 GB)
If you want to read more about their tests, you can visit their webpage listed HERE. However, you will need a translator as the page is in Dutch.