Apple is facing our future masked. This week, the company began testing new iPhone software that will allow device owners to unlock the handset while wearing a faceplate. However, there is a catch that aligns with Apple’s strategy to block people in various Apple products and highlights how difficult it can be to develop an 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 app tracking controls and Siri along with the face mask feature. App developers usually get early access to the latest version of iOS to launch or reorganize apps long before the official software release. (Brave souls who don’t mind the risk of making their iPhones brick can also sign up for public beta.) The fully baked version of the software is expected to be available to the general public this spring.
This means that until most people install the latest version of iOS on their iPhones, we will wear masks for a year or more to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Compared to all the other ways the pandemic has changed our lives, having to use a method other than Apple’s Face ID to unlock your iPhone is not a huge inconvenience. However, it’s frustrating to hold your phone in your face just to remind yourself that Face ID won’t work because of the mask. The promise of facial recognition technology – which coexists with very valid concerns about misuse and error rates for people with darker skin – is that it should become smarter and better over time.
With the next software update, Apple is more or less handing over 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, and wear an Apple Watch with watchOS 7.4, picking up the locked phone on the face will trigger a communication between the phone and the watch. The phone will unlock. The watch will also display a notification that the phone has been unlocked. An iOS developer described it at WIRED as an experience similar to unlocking a Mac with an Apple Watch.
As 9to5 Mac notes, this is the second change that Apple has made to its Face ID authentication system to host face masks. Last spring, the company released software that made it easier to avoid using Face ID while wearing a mask by displaying your iPhone’s access code screen after the first time your ID fails. However, these updates have their limitations. The new Face ID-with-face mask feature will only work with your phone unlock. So if you use Face ID for Apple Pay transactions or to connect to third-party applications, you’ll need to sign in differently.
But the biggest question is why Apple is relying on the Apple Watch to unlock iPhones with face masks, instead of launching software that simply recognizes the uncovered portion of a person’s face. At the time of publication, Apple had not yet answered WIRED’s questions about this. Experts say that there are a lot of ethical and technical considerations when implementing any facial recognition technology, but when it comes to 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 the progress of facial recognition over the past five to 10 years, he is still “susceptible to occlusion – that is, what part of face is not visible. In most cases, the technology assumes that the person will remove their glasses and facials, the lighting would be homogeneous, and the expression would be neutral, like a passport photo. ”