Alright, in this day and age almost everyone in India has a smartphone and a good number of them have recently started displaying the option to use ‘Face Recognition’ or ‘Face Unlock’. Now, I know that the process of unlocking your phone just by looking at it looks and feels pretty cool and futuristic and I agree, it feels awesome. But if we are to trust a piece of technology, we must first know everything about it.

There are two types of implying this feature:

A. Infrared (IR) – this works by projecting millions of tiny dots on your face using an IR blaster and then using an IR camera to detect the specific arrangement of said dots and if it matches the previously recorded one, it unlocks your device. It’s secure enough NOT to be fooled by pictures of the person and it mostly works even through sunglasses and works in the dark. Examples are Apple’s FaceID and any phone which has Dim lights near its selfie camera.

B. RGB (Camera) – this works by taking a picture of the person using the selfie camera and every time the screen wakes up, the phone uses the camera to look for the user and if it finds a match, it unlocks the phone. It’s really easy to fool using images or even people that look similar and it mostly doesn’t work with sunglasses or in the dark. Examples are Every phone that displays the feature but doesn’t have the disco lights :p

Annnd then there’s the love child of these two, Samsung’s IRIS scanner which also uses an IR system to unlock BUT only for the user’s EYES. it basically records the patterns on the user’s iris, which is unique for everyone mind you, but it doesn’t work with sunglasses as you have to stick your phone about a finger’s distance from your face for it to work. It’s the most secure of the three but loses a lot of usability points because no one likes to “look me in the eyes” their phone to unlock it.

Now, this is still a small development in the field and it still has a long way to go. A lot of people have started trusting it with their money but, with the exceptions of phones which use Infrared sensors to imply this feature, THIS IS NOT SECURE!

So, top obsessing over the feature and wait until it’s completely developed.