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Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

washingtonpost.com

31–40 of 152 posts

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#31
The scariest part about this tech is not what my phone will do with my face, but what other people's phones will do with my face. Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram were bad enough. Am I going to have to start wearing a mask in public just so I don't have my face tracked, sold to the highest bidder, and left in unsecured databases for hackers to obtain?

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#32
post #19
post #13

I've been playing with the TrueDepth Camera APIs on the iPhone X. Some things I've noticed: 1) The ARKit "Face Mesh" seems to be a standard model that is scaled and skewed to fit your face (for example, it ignores glasses, still works if you put your hand in front of your face, etc). It is _not_ a 3D scan. 2) The "TrueDepth" data is not really all that granular. It seems similar to the depth map you get from the rear…

> 2) The "TrueDepth" data is not really all that granular. It seems similar to the depth map you get from the rear-facing cameras on the "plus" sized models. Here's what the sensor data spits out: https://twitter.com/braddwyer/status/930682879977361408 As @braddwyer himself notes, you can probably get a much better mesh integrating over time. It depends how long it takes to capture a single frame, but I imagine that'…

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Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#33
post #29
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@braddwyer is me :) It gives you about 15 fps of depth data

Haha, cool! Hi :) Given the small size of the laser projector, I imagine natural movement from the phone being hand-held would result in significant displacement of the projected dots over a 1s interval? Have you tried integrating the 15 frames to see what it looks like?

I haven't yet.

We submitted a game about 3 weeks ago using front-facing ARKit as its core game mechanic and it hasn't been approved by Apple yet.

I'm waiting to see if they're going to allow us to use the new technology in novel ways or not before I invest a lot more time in it.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#36
Clickbait headline. Apple isn't doing what the headline implies. The headline's hype also does not remotely match the contents of the article. Which leads me to discredit the article in general and look for a more reliable source on what is actually happening.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#38
post #18

Tell me again how FaceID will be "so much more secure" than TouchID - when Apple itself is sharing those 3D facial profiles with third-party vendors (and governments). In practice , fingerprint readers should still remain significantly more secure than any facial recognition technology.

I admit that I am pretty ignorant to the really technical aspects of security but it seems that using authentication data for anything other than authentication is poor practice. I can understand the desire to use facial stuff to make interesting technology but I would prefer knowing that it is only used for the purpose of unlocking my device and nothing else. It seems fingerprints are less interesting for other apps…

There's a missing link between "third-party apps have access to the depth sensor data" and "depth sensor data is used to identify your face for FaceID". The iOS biometric authentication API is basically just a call for the OS to check your information and return whether or not it succeeded [1]. Third parties can't just take the biometric data and use it to bypass your authentication without having physical access to your phone.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/localauthenticatio...

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#39
post #12
post #7

I'm honestly less worried about Apple than others. They've at least made some measures to prove that they are willing to go some distance to protect privacy, even losing ground to competitors in voice recognition. Now thinking about co's like Facebook that not only has access to far more imagery of faces tied to sentiments and moments but have shown time and time again that privacy is a secondary concern AND that the…

> I'm honestly less worried about Apple than others. That's a pretty low bar. Yes, Apple at least gives lip service to security which other companies don't even bother to do, but Apple has had some pretty major security screwups lately (three in the last few weeks). You might be less worried about Apple than the competition, but you'd do well to be somewhat worried about them nonetheless.

Indeed. Intent counts for nothing if the capability to secure the data is lacking. All companies claim to be secure, to respect your privacy yadda yadda...

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#40
post #13

I've been playing with the TrueDepth Camera APIs on the iPhone X. Some things I've noticed: 1) The ARKit "Face Mesh" seems to be a standard model that is scaled and skewed to fit your face (for example, it ignores glasses, still works if you put your hand in front of your face, etc). It is _not_ a 3D scan. 2) The "TrueDepth" data is not really all that granular. It seems similar to the depth map you get from the rear…

> .. could be scary. But I disagree that this has anything to do with the iPhone X or its TrueDepth camera.

Well, lets just say there's the kind of scary fact that nobody, trustworthy, has audited this thing.

Like, should a company that didn't run a "doesn't let root login on first-try" test be allowed to be making such wide-ranging decisions as face-scanning?

What if I don't want to have my face scanned, but nevertheless need to pick up somebody's lost-phone/detonation-device? Shall I just wear a mask?

The point is that we have moved beyond a zone where 'disagree/-agree' means anything, any more. Our data is out there.

Not so sure I want my face involved where, preferably, my hands should be..

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