One of the hottest smartphones in 2017 is the iPhone X, and Apple fans are finally getting their hands on it. That means a ton of people out there have had the chance to tinker with it and its features, particularly Face ID.
Interestingly, the new facial recognition technology can be somewhat fooled. You just need someone who looks almost like you, such as your brother or sister perhaps but not necessarily a twin, which is evidenced by a few testers' findings.
iPhone X's Face ID Tricked
It's more or less expected that the siblings can hoodwink Face ID when it comes to twins. As proof, Mashable recently ran tests on it, where one twin would set things up with their face and confirm it's working correctly, and then have the other try to unlock it.
The news outlet had two groups of twins to participate, and in both cases, each of them managed to successfully unlock the iPhone X with the unregistered sibling.
Now a video on Reddit shared by user mohanishs show that you don't need a twin to fool Face ID, even just a brother who looks similar to you will do.
As everyone can see, the user who's registered in Face ID can unlock the iPhone X with no problems at all. The thing is, when he handed it over to his brother, who is five years younger, can also unlock it with his face, though he had to put on a pair of similar-looking glasses as his brother's first.
In another clip, two half-brothers also tricked Face ID, one of which is clearly much younger than the other.
In Apple's Defense
These results shouldn't come as much of a surprise, though. Apple did note that there's a probability of roughly 1 in 1,000,000 for a random person to unlock your iPhone X with Face ID successfully, but in the case of "twins and siblings that look like you and among children under the age of 13," it's different.
More than that, the brothers in the clip that mohanishs posted on Reddit made a follow-up after digging deeper. They found out that the unregistered brother couldn't unlock the iPhone X at first, but after trying it over and over again while unlocking the device with a passcode, he can finally use Face ID to unlock it.
What's likely happening here is that the two look similar enough for the iPhone X to be "trained" that it should unlock itself for the younger brother too, thinking that they're the same person.
One more noteworthy instance is the test Business Insider conducted, where it got identical twins to try and fool Face ID. While the first twin could unlock the iPhone X easily even when wearing a hat, a pair of sunglasses, and a scarf, the second twin couldn't at all.
In short, even Apple itself says that Face ID isn't foolproof and recommends to still go with a passcode for authentication purposes for those who are concerned about its security. However, that doesn't mean that the facial recognition technology isn't secure.
