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Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

washingtonpost.com

121–130 of 152 posts

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#121
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are an apologist for what is the equivalent of having hundreds of people in trenchcoats following every person on the planet, detailing their every public move and storing it forever, you don't have any reasonable expectation of your part in the documentary being underlaid with anything but sinister music.

I don't know if I'm an "apologist" for anything, but what you're describing has been the case for decades by now; it's an inherent property of cell phone networks. By 2005 we already all carried personally identifiable devices with microphones, geolocation, and cameras and a persistent connection to a network.

> what you're describing has been the case for decades by now;

Does that make it even the tiniest bit more acceptable, or does that mean it's really high time to stop it? Being an apologist kind of hinges on that, and no need to put anything in quotes.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#122
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…

Are you sure. I mean, I know it's tinfoil and the refusal to open phones for the FBI is debunking it, but we've given Apple a database of our fingerprints and now our facial ids as well as constant real time location data of our whereabouts. It's probably not abused, but how can we really know in the post Snowden world.

Sure I'm sure. I trust Apple more than Facebook or Google, and I still don't want Apple to have my facial ID info.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#123
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…

Are you sure. I mean, I know it's tinfoil and the refusal to open phones for the FBI is debunking it, but we've given Apple a database of our fingerprints and now our facial ids as well as constant real time location data of our whereabouts. It's probably not abused, but how can we really know in the post Snowden world.

Apple has repeatedly stated that Touch ID and Face ID data does not leave the device, including for backups.

“Face ID data doesn’t leave your device and is never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else.” (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108)

“[Your fingerprint data] can’t be accessed by the OS on your device or by any applications running on it. It's never stored on Apple servers, it's never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else, and it can't be used to match against other fingerprint databases.” (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108)

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#124
post #50

You know how some F2P games will allow you to watch video ads in order to e.g. earn extra in-game currency, activate a point multiplier, etc? As it stands, you can start one of these ads and then turn your phone upside down, or look away. How long until an advertising provider makes use of the attention API and makes it so that you can't look away? Seems bleak.

Are any apps already doing this? Facial recognition isn't exactly exotic technology, and pretty much all phones has a front facing camera these days.

Face ID really doesn't change that.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting minute, subpixel movements can ironically give you MORE resolution if you process it over time, though you'd probably need some sort of "anchor" points

That doesn’t seem ironic to me.

I think the irony being implied is that normally when you're shooting video and your camera is jittering, you're effectively losing resolution compared to a static camera because of motion blur, whereas this depth mapping benefits from minute movements. Though looking at individual frames of video is different than combining them into a single sharper image, I get the counterintuitive feeling they were driving at.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#126
post #25

The FaceID camera is infrared and can see in the dark [1]. According to the Post "Once you give it permission, an active app keeps on having access to your face until you delete it or dig into advanced settings. There’s no option that says, “Just for the next five minutes.”" So a random developer can (kind of) look at us when we turn the light off. Not only that, those cameras work also in the sunlight. You can go on…

The permissions model is the same as the cameras.

I think the visual-spectrum cameras provide _a lot_ more sensitive data than the rough facial depth data. What does your phone “see” on a daily basis? Have you taken your phone into the bathroom with you lately?

Being able to handle the dark doesn't seem like that big a deal — most of the time people use their phone in well lit areas, and if they aren't, their phone generally lights up their face.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#127
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…

> 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. This is how most (all?) state of the art acquisition methods for standard objects (faces, hands, etc) work. By warping a high res template to fit the data in some optimal manner, you get guarantees on t…

How does that work with people with non standard features? Think glass eyes, acid burns, missing fingers, etc.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#128
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…

Well that's not what I was sold at the keynote. Has this been verified? I thought my face was being scanned with 30k dots and all that.

There's a big difference between what Apple is using to perform FaceID scans and the APIs it exposes to developers. Apple has historically been very cautious about the access it gives to developers, especially where matters of privacy are concerned.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is how most (all?) state of the art acquisition methods for standard objects (faces, hands, etc) work. By warping a high res template to fit the data in some optimal manner, you get guarantees on t…

How does that work with people with non standard features? Think glass eyes, acid burns, missing fingers, etc.

It doesn't.

I'd be curious to know if face unlock had problems with vision impairment, i.e. no gaze vector.

Re: Apple is sharing your facial wireframe with apps

#130
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> .. 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 neverth…

> 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? Well...yeah. If you're out in public and your face is visible, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

While I love the idea of everyone walking around in masks, do that at the moment and you are likely to be arrested or shot.
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