Apple Reportedly Acquires Facial Recognition Startup

While fingerprint sensors aren’t new, it’s hard not to give Apple credit for making it “cool” again with the introduction of Touch ID on the iPhone. However there have been some rumors that suggests that Apple could be getting rid of the feature in favor of a different biometric security scanning tool, which last we heard could be a facial scanner.

If you’re looking for more evidence of such a thing happening, a report from Calcalist (via Engadget) has revealed that Apple has apparently acquired a company called RealFace, a facial recognition startup that has developed deep learning facial authentication technology. No word on how much this acquisition cost Apple, but it is said to have been several million dollars.

That being said you should temper your expectations. Apple does acquire companies from time to time, whether it be for the talent or their intellectual property. They don’t always necessarily find their way into Apple’s finished products, so it’s hard to say if this recent alleged acquisition is related to the iPhone.

For all we know Apple could be trying to one-up Microsoft’s Hello security feature for their macOS platform. In any case take it with a grain of salt, but what do you guys think? Will facial recognition prove to be more secure compared to fingerprint scanning?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones, Rumors
Tags: iPhone