iPhone X's facial recognition program could open the device to inspecton by U.S. law enforcement officers without a warrant, some experts are worrying.
Authorities are required to ask a judge for a warrant to unlock and check out a person's cellphone, but a warrant isn't needed to get the same person to open his or her phone by use of a fingerprint, according to news website RT.
Some are questioning if law enforcement's can compel users to unlock their phones in similar ways using the new Apple iPhone’s facial recognition feature.
In 2014, Virginia Circuit Court Judge Steven Frucci ruled that giving police a fingerprint was akin to providing a DNA or handwriting sample or an actual key, and not divulging knowledge, such as a passcode, which is protected by law, the Virginian-Pilot reported then.
Splinter News reported in July that law enforcement approached a professor at Michigan State University to create a 3-D print of a murder victim so it could use that person's finger print to unlock his smartphone.
"The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination," security and law researcher Bryan Choi told Splinter News. "Here, the fingerprints are of the deceased victim, not the murder suspect. Obviously, the victim is not at risk of incrimination."
"We don't know much," Matthew Green, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, told Forbes magazine. "But for one thing it's relatively hard to avoid using your face. With Touch ID you could at least give the wrong finger."
"I'm nervous about how well the tech will do at preventing impersonation with pictures. There are a few techniques that can stop this, like high-speed analysis to detect a pulse, or use of a 3D sensor. Apple hasn't really explained the tech so we just don't know how safe it is," Green said.
While Apple claims its facial recognition program includes "presence detection," opening the iPhone X only when the user looks directly at the device, it did not mention "stress" or "duress detection" to stop the unlock if the person's face shows signs of being in trouble, Forbes said.
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