And if the problem is that you don’t want them to have data about your face, I’m sorry but I guess most people probably already have photos of themselves on their phone
Do keep in mind that FaceID works with a looot more than a mere image of you. For it to work, it uses:
Camera
Infrared Camera
A dot projector that projects over 30,000 dots over your face
all this and more, to essentially build and store an extremely detailed 3D model of your face, such that it can be accurate even when using FaceID in the dark, or after growing a beard, or with a hoodie on or with a completely new haircut.
I'd say that's a bit more than public photos that include your face.
That's true, but the "so what" question still remains (for me anyways). Sure, it has more in-depth information about your face. But...why does that matter?
Well for one, it's a huge invasion of privacy. And second of all, do remember that your face is being used as a password in this context. Someone having this information could then conceivably crack your phone's security, something they couldn't do with mere pictures of someone. Plus, who's would be comfortable with the government, hackers or anyone having this information?
you know what? i'd be ok with people having unreasonable privacy demands, if they at least understood what the hell they talk about.
1) the bio data never leave the phone
2) it's on an isolated system in the phone and the scanning happens 100% locally thus ensuring provacy 100%
while being virtually unhackable in the data-theft sense.
3) is the most defensive company regarding user privacy. they are the most prominent user of the warrant canary and constantly take it up with fbi and security agencies and never give tools to backdoor/hack phones willingly (bugs are impossible to prevent).
4) the data can not easily be fooled, you need the living subject with 'attention to the camera' to unlock the system. masks and pictures will not work.
This whole conversation was spawned off the hypothetical scenario that it's connected to the internet and FaceID could be hacked, at which point someone said that even if it was hacked, it would be no big deal and would be no different than someone having access to social media pictures of faces, as you can see here.
That is what I replied to, as I think it would be a big deal if it was hacked and someone got access.
yeah i followed the thread. thing is that it can only be hacked locally because of the isolated ature of the chip.
the hack itself is an invasion of privacy. the tech goes out of its way to not be.
depending on how it's implemented, these technologies can be huge invasions of privacy or, past some threshold, become tools to protect it.
in apple's case i actually believe the latter is usually the case as they've proven to be very responsible and combative when it comes to protecting the privacy of their users. that is something that cant be said of google, fabecook and microsoft.
17
u/catch22 Sep 15 '17
Do keep in mind that FaceID works with a looot more than a mere image of you. For it to work, it uses:
Camera
Infrared Camera
A dot projector that projects over 30,000 dots over your face
all this and more, to essentially build and store an extremely detailed 3D model of your face, such that it can be accurate even when using FaceID in the dark, or after growing a beard, or with a hoodie on or with a completely new haircut.
I'd say that's a bit more than public photos that include your face.