Apple iPhone X Kicks Off Face-Recognition Mania

When I heard that Australia will use facial recognition instead of passports for "known" passengers entering the country, I was concerned. Instead of some bloke having to pull out his passport (oh, the agony), an expensive facial-recognition system will be employed instead.

These systems do work and might even be the future, but you should be leery of the sudden popularity of this technology, and distressed by the tech community's enthusiasm. It's a doorway to a totalitarian state, and it works better than you think. At least from my experience.

At a security show about five years ago, I was shown a turnstile system to be used at sporting events. I thought it could not possibly work all the time. I registered my face and walked through the turnstile over and over and over with different attempts to conceal my identity. I puffed out my cheeks, twisted my mouth around, closed my eyes, stuck out my tongue. It identified me each time.

Since then I've been told that these things can be tricked by pasting two pictures of eyeballs above your eyebrows. I'm sure a criminal organization can buy some of this gear and test various ideas, but for the most part, these things work a lot better than you'd imagine.

We can assume the NSA, which spies on its own citizenry, will store massive amounts of imagery in its huge facility in Utah. From that, an instant dossier of someone's whereabouts can be produced as needed.

Until then, we have Apple's iPhone X, which swaps Touch ID for Face ID. The real beneficiaries of this technique will be the police; they can just point it at the person and they are in.

Apple previously relied on fingerprints with Touch ID; now the home button is gone, perhaps saving it money. Facial recognition is just software, after all; the camera is already in the phone.

I'm not sure where this face-recognition trend will lead, but it probably won't be a good thing with cameras everywhere watching your every move. I'm just surprised nobody is complaining about it.

iPhone X Camera Features