14 DAY TRIAL // Apple itself claims Face ID is substantially more secure than Touch ID, claiming a 1:1,000,000 chance for someone else to be able to access your iPhone X, up from 1:50,000 in the case of the fingerprint sensor.
And yet, videos that reached the web in the last couple of weeks showed the facial recognition system bypassed quite often, mostly by people that share similar characteristics in the way they look.
One such video is now making the headlines, claiming that the iPhone X comes with a bug that allows even people not necessarily looking the same to breach Face ID in a very simple way.
Cult of Mac says the video was made by two third-grade cousins, “meaning that they share at least one set of great-great-grandparents,” so it goes without saying that they’re not really lookalikes, though they themselves admit they “do have similar features.”
iPhone X Face ID learning system
And it’s these features that made them thought they had discovered an iPhone X bug that allows one cousin bypass Face ID on the device of the other all by entering the passcode to the phone. Their test, however, is flawed and used functionality that was supposed to be a feature on the iPhone X.
Basically, the iPhone X restricts access to another person to your device when the face of the owner is not detected, but by entering the passcode, the user actually makes the iPhone X believe they are the owner of the device. In this case, the iPhone X adds his face to the facial recognition system, thus providing access following further Face ID unlocking attempts.
And yet, this system doesn’t work unless the users look similar. I’ve personally tried this with one of my colleagues, and the feature just doesn’t work, clearly because we look entirely different. Entering the passcode did provide him with access to the device, but Face ID prevented him from doing it despite several attempts.
