Apple offer refund after its Face ID can’t tell two women apart

Since its release, Apple’s Face ID has been hacked, tricked and pushed to its limits through various different means. It seems none of these elaborate techniques are needed for a Chinese woman, who has been offered a refund after she discovered the “impossible” glitch that her colleague could unlock her iPhone X.

While there have been similar reports of iPhone X owners having others unlock their phone, more often than not, this was due to who was set as the owner and in what lighting conditions the set up happened to be performed at, causing sub-par results from the “most advanced” technology that Apple has ever created.

Yan, however, is a different case entirely. Despite Apple’s claims that a person other than the set owner unlocking the phone is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance in comparison to Touch ID’s 1 in 50,000, Yan went on to discover that no matter who was set as the owner, both her and her colleague managed to unlock the phone in any situation.

In a conversation with Jiangsu Broadcasting Corp, Yan said when calling Apple’s support, she was told that the issue was “impossible,” forcing her to demonstrate the problem in her nearest Apple store.  After various tests, the company offered Yan a refund for her troubles and cropped it up a bug in that specific handset’s camera, but the problem persisted on her second iPhone X.

This could have been a result of the iPhone X being trained during its passcode setup phase to recognise both women, however it is still an inherent problem of the device. Apple has yet to release an official statement on the matter.

KitGuru Says: It seems unlikely that Yan would have managed to teach the AI to recognise both her and her colleague yet again the second time around, especially after the arduous process of getting the staff to believe her plight. I have a feeling that this won’t be the last story we hear on Face ID unlocks, either. Have you been using the new iPhone X?

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