iPhone X iPhone X Face ID has started Unlocking With 2 Faces !

[soulghost]

Let me start by saying, Face id has been working flawlessly on my Silver X and my Moms SG X. I've had my phone since launch day, and my mom got hers about 10 days ago.

This morning my mom mentioned that since she bought the phone, Sim Failure warnings have been appearing every few days. Restarting the phone fixes the problem, but the warning reappears in a day or two. So this morning i decided to swap the sim in her phone with a different sim. I'm staying with my parents over the holidays, therefore i could monitor the phone over the next few days to see if the phone is faulty or moms sim.
Well since the sim swap, i was shocked to notice face id was unlocking to my face. Also the phone still unlocks with her face. Please remember this was a brand new phone which has only ever been set up with her face id. Before the sim swap this morning i've always used her phone with a passcode, but since this morning it seems to have added my face all by itself.

I repeat....the face id has only been set up once when the phone was activated from new, and currently it's unlocking with two different faces.

Thinking it could be a faulty id sensor, i tried unlocking with other faces eg my father and brother....but no, mine is the only face added.
Anyone have a clue what's occurred.

 

[PeterRollback]

Let me start by saying, Face id has been working flawlessly on my Silver X and my Moms SG X. I've had my phone since launch day, and my mom got hers about 10 days ago.

This morning my mom mentioned that since she bought the phone, Sim Failure warnings have been appearing every few days. Restarting the phone fixes the problem, but the warning reappears in a day or two. So this morning i decided to swap the sim in her phone with a different sim. I'm staying with my parents over the holidays, therefore i could monitor the phone over the next few days to see if the phone is faulty or moms sim.
Well since the sim swap, i was shocked to notice face id was unlocking to my face. Also the phone still unlocks with her face. Please remember this was a brand new phone which has only ever been set up with her face id. Before the sim swap this morning i've always used her phone with a passcode, but since this morning it seems to have added my face all by itself.

I repeat....the face id has only been set up once when the phone was activated from new, and currently it's unlocking with two different faces.

Thinking it could be a faulty id sensor, i tried unlocking with other faces eg my father and brother....but no, mine is the only face added.
Anyone have a clue what's occurred.

This surely is odd. I would get in contact with Apple to see if they can look into the security aspects of this particular phone. I say because when the 5s first came out, within the first month I was able to unlock my friend's phone using my fingerprint, even though I never added my finger.

 

[Vermifuge]

I repeat....the face id has only been set up once when the phone was activated from new, and currently it's unlocking with two different faces.

So Face ID can and will adapt over time. It does so by updating the Face ID profile every time Face ID fails. E.G. you use Face ID and it fails. The user is prompted for a passcode. Once the passcode is entered Face ID updates with the information from the last failed attempt and adds it to the profile.

So let’s say you pick up the phone and it fails. You hand it to the owner and they enter the password for you. Well there’s a chance that your mug may be added to the profile at that time. In the future it may become possible for two, three or even more face to gain access to the phone through Face ID.

 

[thesaint024]

Fascinating. Throwing out a theory, could it be that using the passcode is actually learning your face since you likely entered it multiple times unlocking her phone for troubleshooting reasons? This might be a backdoor way to have more than one person unlock your phone (intentionally). Like having multiple people's fingers entered in touchID.

Edit: @Vermifuge beat me to it.

 

[xraydoc]

Fascinating. Throwing out a theory, could it be that using the passcode is actually learning your face since you likely entered it multiple times unlocking her phone for troubleshooting reasons? This might be a backdoor way to have more than one person unlock your phone (intentionally). Like having multiple people's fingers entered in touchID.

Edit: @Vermifuge beat me to it.

Or perhaps he looks just like his mother. Lol.

 

[Makayla]

Do you and your mom look alike? If so, maybe the sensor thinks it's the same person and has been doing some learning to update and modify the face and now it accepts both of your faces.

But I imagine it would only work if you two look somewhat alike to begin with. Otherwise shouldn't the sensor realize it's altogether another person even if you have the passcode?

Very interesting point to think about.


Edit to add: several people had the same theory up thread. Lol

 

[Vermifuge]

Do you and your mom look alike? If so, maybe the sensor thinks it's the same person and has been doing some learning to update and modify the face and now it accepts both of your faces.

But I imagine it would only work if you two look somewhat alike to begin with. Otherwise shouldn't the sensor realize it's altogether another person even if you have the passcode?

Very interesting point to think about.

From the articles I have read the “machine learning” isn’t that advanced. It just captures the face in front of it ad adds it to the Face ID profile. Pretty generic fuzzy logic level stuff.

 

[serialiphoneuser]

That's just "1 in a million". This happens all the time with iPhone X. It can be fooled by family members and persons who share some resemblance to you.

 

[soulghost]

Do you and your mom look alike? If so, maybe the sensor thinks it's the same person and has been doing some learning to update and modify the face and now it accepts both of your faces.

But I imagine it would only work if you two look somewhat alike to begin with. Otherwise shouldn't the sensor realize it's altogether another person even if you have the passcode?

Very interesting point to think about.


Edit to add: several people had the same theory up thread. Lol

I think you could be onto something here. Despite the 30 yr age difference, looking at me me there's no doubt i'm her son. And as i've been using her device a lot over the past week or so the sensors have started to add me as a trusted user or, there's a serious flaw in Apples system. Might even book a genius appointment and try and get an answer from Apple.

 

[orev]

No doubt the AI is learning your face during the successful entry of the passcode.

 

[TokMok3]

I think you could be onto something here. Despite the 30 yr age difference, looking at me me there's no doubt i'm her son. And as i've been using her device a lot over the past week or so the sensors have started to add me as a trusted user or, there's a serious flaw in Apples system. Might even book a genius appointment and try and get an answer from Apple.

Very interesting, it could be a huge bug on the system, as a developer, sometimes we test every possible thing that it could fail, and when we thought that is bullet proof, somebody does something simple that we never thought about and the app crush and maybe you just did that.

 

[thesaint024]

That's just "1 in a million". This happens all the time with iPhone X. It can be fooled by family members and persons who share some resemblance to you.

Define "all the time"? Because you've read a couple threads on MR? Simple solution if you don't feel secure with the technology is buy another phone. A family member that entered the passcode multiple times is a believable scenario that the phone could be learning the new person. BTW, massive font isn't really necessary to get your point across. Again, buy another phone.

 

[rawCpoppa]

Define "all the time"? Because you've read a couple threads on MR? Simple solution if you don't feel secure with the technology is buy another phone. A family member that entered the passcode multiple times is a believable scenario that the phone could be learning the new person. BTW, massive font isn't really necessary to get your point across. Again, buy another phone.

I don’t see the need to attack him for pointing out something that should not be. Adding another face to the profile should not be easy at all. Especially because Apple hasn’t said this is supposed to be possible.

 

[thesaint024]

I don’t see the need to attack him for pointing out something that should not be. Adding another face to the profile should not be easy at all. Especially because Apple hasn’t said this is supposed to be possible.

OK. His massive fonts offend my sensibilities and is poor form, like all caps, like being yelled at. I'm "attacking" his precise statement "happens all the time" which is baseless and poorly defined.

Back to point, this is known to be possible with twins, family members, etc. If you give your passcode to a family member, and the FID is actually trying to learn based on what it thinks is failed FID attempts, is the result really that inconceivable? Again, family member (similar features), FID learning, having the passcode to begin with, seems like reasonable possibility. @serialiphoneuser is implying this should never happen and FID is not a secure technology. I thus responded with, use what you feel is a more secure technology, aka a different phone. I can also complain about not being able to teleport, but there is no practical technology available to allow me to do that, so I will fly on planes for now. From my understanding, there is not a more secure, PRACTICAL technology to FID. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I would look into that phone. I was happy with TouchID, and feel sufficiently secure using it. It's technically not as secure, but even that was secure enough for me. Let's be rational here.

 

[pika2000]

Define "all the time"? Because you've read a couple threads on MR? Simple solution if you don't feel secure with the technology is buy another phone.

Or one can just use the traditional pin code.

Just with any anecdotal information, it's hard to make a definitive conclusion without knowing the actual situation. I'm not sure why people are so hungup on FaceID's "failures." Remember the first introduction of TouchID? The goal is not to create a totally-fool-proof biometric. It is to tackle the problem that most people don't even lock their iPhone using the PIN code. TouchID, and then the next gen solution FaceID, made the idea of securing your phone to be as easy as possible, while still being secure enough for most situations.

As for the OP, I think it wouldn't hurt to contact Apple.