If you’re a parent with a kid that’s a chip off the old block then I’m afraid we have some bad news about the iPhone X.
A new video published to YouTube this week showed a 10-year-old easily unlocking his mother’s iPhone via the new Face ID facial recognition feature.
Attaullah Malik and Sana Sherwani said they passed the brand new handset to young Ammar, only for it to unlock as soon as he looked at it.
“We were sitting down in our bedroom and were just done setting up the Face IDs, our 10-year-old son walked in anxious to get his hands on the new iPhone X,” Attaullah wrote on YouTube.
“Right away my wife declared that he was not going to access her phone. Acting exactly as a kid would do when asked to not do something, he picked up her phone and with just a glance got right in.”
Funnily enough, Ammar’s father noted that most folks say he looks more like his dad than his mum.
Ice cream e’ry day
Young Ammar’s discovery is likely to perturb parents who can no longer secure their handsets behind a Touch ID fingerprint.
If more kids, who take after their folks in terms of facial features, are able to bypass Face ID it could hit parents in the back pocket and expose younger kids to inappropriate material.
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Kids could suddenly be making in-app purchases, access banking apps or viewing unsuitable content, for example.
“We don’t want to disable Face ID. It’s very convenient. But this is a lot of hassle in terms of privacy,” Malik told Wired.
“If my son had access to my wife’s phone and she had that app on it, he could order ice cream for himself whenever he wanted.”
The parents wiped the facial scan data and registered Sherwani again. This time it didn’t work.
On the third occasion, however, it worked two times during the first six attempts. From that point on, he was able to unlock the phone consistently as the iPhone X appeared to learn his features.
It’s not clear yet whether the problem is widespread and Apple has not responded to requests for comment.
Is this likely to prevent you from buying an iPhone X? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
