Apple is facing our masked future. This week, the company has started testing some new software for the iPhone that will allow device owners to unlock the phone while wearing a face cover. However, there is one issue that fits into Apple’s strategy of fixing people on different Apple products and highlights how difficult it can be to develop accurate facial recognition technology: the new face unlock feature. requires an Apple Watch.
The first beta version for iOS 14.5 developers includes updates to application tracking controls and Siri along with the face mask feature. App creators usually have early access to the latest version of iOS to start or reconfigure their apps well in advance of the formal version of the software. (Brave souls who don’t care about the risk of breaking their iPhones can also sign up for public beta versions.) The fully scheduled version of the software will be available to the general public this spring.
This means that by the time most people install the newest version of iOS on their iPhones, we wear masks for a year or more to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. Compared to all the other ways the pandemic has altered our lives, having to use a different method than Apple’s Face ID to unlock your iPhone isn’t a big inconvenience. Still, it’s frustrating to keep your phone on your face just to remember that Face ID won’t work because of the mask. The promise of facial recognition technology, which coexists with very valid concerns about its misuse and error rates for people with darker skin, is that it is supposed to be smarter and better with Over time.
With the next software update, Apple is more or less delivering the authentication load to the Apple Watch. If you’re using a newer iPhone model (one with Face ID) and you’ve installed iOS 14.5 beta software, i bring an Apple Watch with watchOS 7.4; lifting the locked phone to the face will activate some communication between the phone and the watch. The phone will be unlocked. The watch will also display a notification indicating that the phone has been unlocked. An iOS developer described it to WIRED as an experience similar to unlocking a Mac with an Apple Watch.
How 9to5 Mac notes, this is the second change Apple has made to its Face ID authentication system to fit face masks. Last spring, the company released software that made it easier to avoid using Face ID while wearing a mask, showing the iPhone password screen after failing the first time Face ID . However, these updates have their limitations. The new Face ID feature with face mask will only work with your phone unlock. Therefore, if you use Face ID for Apple Pay transactions or to sign in to third-party applications, you’ll still need to authenticate otherwise.
But the more important question is why Apple relies on the Apple Watch to unlock iPhones with face masks, rather than launching software that simply recognizes the exposed portion of a person’s face. At the time of publication, Apple had not yet answered WIRED’s questions about this. Experts say there are many ethical and technical considerations when deploying any facial recognition technology, but when performing facial recognition on partially covered faces it is particularly difficult.
Anil K. Jain, who researches computer vision, machine learning, and biometric recognition at Michigan State University, says that despite advances in facial recognition over the past five to ten years, he is still “susceptible to occlusion, that is, which part of the face is not visible. In most cases, the technology assumes that the person will remove the glasses and facial coatings, the lighting would be homogeneous and the expression would be neutral, like a passport photo. “