How the iPhone X’s Face ID Is Shaking Up Consumer Electronics

There was plenty to be excited about in Apple’s announcement of the iPhone X – mostly in the positive sense, other than the price tag – but one aspect that has caught quite a lot of attention is the smartphone’s Face ID facial recognition system, which replaces Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint scanning system on the iPhone X. While mobile facial recognition technology has been gaining in popularity for a while, Apple’s new system is undeniably a particularly sophisticated one, and its emergence may signal a new surge in mobile face scanning technology, particularly of the infrared variety. Here’s why:

Apple Isn’t the Only Big Tech Company Pioneering Infrared Facial Recognition

Microsoft has been on this beat since it launched its Windows 10 operating system in 2015. The OS’s Windows Hello security platform features support for biometric authentication including fingerprint and infrared facial recognition – but it’s just software, so whether or not this kind of security catches on depends on hardware makers. More devices have been emerging lately that can support Windows Hello’s infrared facial recognition, and if Apple succeeds in popularizing it on mobile devices, that could help to accelerate its arrival on Windows devices, too.

And Other Mobile Companies Are Following Suit

LG just launched its flagship V30 smartphone, which supports facial recognition in conjunction with fingerprint and voice recognition. It’s a clear sign that other smartphone makers anticipated Apple’s pivot to face scanning for authentication. Samsung also included support for facial recognition in its Samsung Galaxy S8 devices, though its focus was on pioneering iris recognition and the facial recognition technology’s performance paled in comparison to iris-based authentication. But with Apple now poised to take the throne in mobile facial recognition, Samsung will be keen to stay competitive and may come up with its own infrared system on the Galaxy S9.

There’s More to Come

As it gains popularity, facial recognition could find its way into other devices besides smartphones and computers. Facebook, for example, is thought to be working on an Amazon Echo rival that will feature facial recognition, and with the revelation of the iPhone X, there’s mounting incentive to make sure it’s infrared. As it did with fingerprint scanning on the smartphone, Apple is blazing a trail, and a lot of companies are going to want to pursue the treasure it might lead to.

–

September 14, 2017 – by Alex Perala

Partners

FaceTec’s patented, industry-leading 3D Face Verification and Reverification software anchors digital identity, creating a chain of trust from user onboarding to ongoing authentication on all modern smart devices and webcams. FaceTec’s 3D FaceMaps™ finally make trusted, remote identity verification possible. As the only technology backed by a persistent spoof bounty program and NIST/iBeta Certified Liveness Detection, FaceTec is the global standard for 3D Liveness and Face Matching with millions of users on six continents in financial services, border security, transportation, blockchain, e-voting, social networks, online dating and more. www.facetec.com

AuthenticID provides 100% automated identity verification and fraud detection solutions that are leveraged by companies worldwide, including 2 of the top 3 U.S. Banks, 8 out the top 10 wireless providers in North America, and 2 of the 3 credit bureaus. Using proprietary computer vision and machine learning technology, these solutions help companies accurately verify the identity of their users across retail, digital and call center environments for onboarding and ongoing re-authentication events; KYC, IAM, and more. The solutions are easy to integrate and provide customers a large ROI by stopping fraud losses, increasing customer conversion at onboarding, reducing operational costs and allowing quick and cost-effective operational scalability, all while ensuring global privacy regulations are complied with. https://www.authenticid.com/

Anonybit is a privacy-focused technology platform that provides decentralized solutions for securing personal data, particularly biometric information. Rather than storing sensitive data in centralized repositories, which are vulnerable to breaches, Anonybit uses a distributed architecture that breaks data into smaller encrypted bits and stores them across a network of decentralized nodes. This approach ensures that no single entity has access to the full dataset, enhancing privacy and security, even preventing insider threats. Anonybit is used by leading banks, fintechs and other enterprises for critical biometric identity functions like deduplication and blocklist checks, step up authentication, passwordless login and account recovery https://anonybit.io/

Identity Week aims to be a significant identity industry catalyst. It’s our mission is to help accelerate the move towards a world where trusted identity solutions enable governments and commercial organisations to provide citizens, employees, customers and consumers with a multitude of opportunities to transact in a seamless, yet secure manner. All the while preventing the efforts of those intent on doing harm. https://identityweek.net/

The Biometric Digital Identity Prism is a market landscape framework designed to help influencers and decision makers understand, innovate, and implement digital identity technologies and solutions. This innovative framework for understanding and evaluating the rapidly evolving biometric digital identity marketplace is the only market model that is truly biometric-centric based on the foundational conviction that in the age of digital transformation the only true, reliable link between humans and their digital data is biometrics. https://www.the-prism-project.com

ID R&D is an innovator of biometric facial liveness, document liveness, and voice biometrics. Ranked #1 by NIST, our patented passive approach to liveness, and specialized detection of voice clones, injection attacks and deepfakes, empowers KYC and authentication systems with fast, accurate and secure biometric verification technologies. Over 140 partners in more than 70 countries are collectively processing hundreds of millions of identity checks per year. ID R&D solutions easily integrate with mobile, web, messaging, smart speakers, set-top boxes, and IoT devices. Learn more: www.idrnd.ai

Footer

Follow Us