At the moment Apple’s Face ID feature works pretty much as intended and seems to be pretty hard to fool. However it doesn’t mean that it is perfect, but if a recently published patent is anything to go by, it seems that in the future Face ID could be made more accurate/secure.
According to the patent (via AppleInsider), it describes how Face ID could be improved on in the future where instead of just scanning the user’s face, it could also be used to scan the veins in the user’s face. This will be done with the use of an optical transmitter that will emit multiple pulses of infrared light and reflect off the user’s veins, which we suppose is similar in concept to how the Apple Watch measures the wearer’s heart rate.
Apple notes in the patent that vein-based authentication is more accurate due to the complexity of vein patterns. This means that it would be harder for someone to try and fake it. When Face ID was introduced, Apple claimed that they worked with mask makers to try and come up with ways to prevent Face ID from being fooled.
By scanning veins, it means that even a well-made mask will not be good enough to fool the system, and could also potentially be used to differentiate identical twins, an issue that Apple claims Face ID might fail at. In any case there’s no telling if Apple will introduce vein scanning to Face ID, but it does sound like it could be a useful upgrade.
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