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Why can’t Sunglasses prevent Apple ID from face recognition？

In an interview with foreign media, Craig federighi, Apple’s software engineering director, answered some questions about face ID in detail. In terms of usage details, we selected some of the most concerned items.

The first is user privacy security.

Craig federighi said that Apple will not collect any user’s facial data, nor will it send any data to the cloud. All data will be stored in the mobile phone, which is exactly a special “secure area”, which is similar to touch ID.

The second is the use scenario. For example, does face ID work when users wear sunglasses, helmets and masks?

Craig federighi said that most sunglasses are OK. As long as the glasses can pass the infrared light and let the face ID scan the eyes, the face ID can complete the verification. But a few Sunglasses block infrared light, and face ID is invalid.

If you are a nurse or doctor, do you need to wear a mask often? Craig federighi said that if you wear a mask, it is equivalent to blocking the user’s face data, and face ID cannot be recognized through the mask. However, wearing a helmet (without blocking face), scarf, etc. will not affect the use of face ID.

In addition, federighi mentioned blind users and visually impaired users.

By default, face ID requires eyeball matching to complete recognition, but the user can choose to disable the “attention detection” function of face ID, and the face ID can be unlocked without looking at it. Of course, this reduces security.

Several banks in South Korea have said they do not fully trust faceid.

In South Korea, both online banks such as kakaobank and k-bank and traditional commercial banks such as KOOKMIN BANK, Shinhan, IBK, Busan and NH have cast a vote of no confidence in faceid. These Korean banks believe that as a new technology, faceid still needs more specific security checks. The level of security Apple offers is not high enough, so they don’t recommend the new technology.

Apple had previously released a technical document on faceid on its official website, in which it mentioned that when developing faceid, they considered the influence of sunlight and sunglasses on faceid. In most cases, wearing sunglasses can also use faceid, but if consumers wear sunglasses that can block specific light, especially the sunglasses that can block the infrared needed by the original camera, the normal use of faceid will be affected.

At the same time, the outdoor sunlight will also affect faceid. If the strong light is directly used in the camera module, the success rate of face recognition will be greatly reduced. In this case, the user needs to go to the place where the sunlight is slightly weak for recognition.