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App Developer Access To iPhone X Face Data Spooks Some Privacy Experts (reuters.com)
A reader shares a report: Apple won accolades from privacy experts in September for assuring that facial data used to unlock its new iPhone X would be securely stored on the phone itself. But Apple's privacy promises do not extend to the thousands of app developers who will gain access to facial data in order to build entertainment features for iPhone X customers, such as pinning a three-dimensional mask to their face for a selfie or letting a video game character mirror the player's real-world facial expressions. Apple allows developers to take certain facial data off the phone as long as they agree to seek customer permission and not sell the data to third parties, among other terms in a contract seen by Reuters. App makers who want to use the new camera on the iPhone X can capture a rough map of a user's face and a stream of more than 50 kinds of facial expressions. This data, which can be removed from the phone and stored on a developer's own servers, can help monitor how often users blink, smile or even raise an eyebrow.
https://vid.me/theouterlinux
Good luck changing your face when the inevitable data breach happens!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
...of course, you have to give them permission to do so, just the same as with this data, apparently.
As such, I fail to see the concern here. If an app requests that permission, simply deny it if it's a concern for you. I'm glad my weather app can grab my current location to give me useful information as I changed locations throughout the day. I'm glad Shazam or whatnot can use the mic to tell me what song is playing. I'm glad my camera apps can access the camera. And it's not outlandish to believe that I may eventually be glad that some form of facial data is getting synced via third-party servers between my devices.
But that'll be my call to make if and when I ever have a phone with these sorts of features, because without my permission, they can't do jack squat, so this whole topic is rather moot.
Apple allows developers to take certain facial data off the phone as long as they agree to seek customer permission and not sell the data to third parties
My sides! Ow! Please, stop, you're killing me!
I agree to seek customer permission via small font legalese hidden in a click-through TOS and I agree not sell the data to third parties, instead I will sell the company with collected data itself.
Sorry, but I'm not giving my biometric information to Apple, an app developer, or pretty much anybody else unless it's fucking required by law ... and only then if I haven't got the legal option to skip whatever entity would require it.
Companies are incompetent at security, app developers are greedy assholes and they are incompetent at security.
Sorry, there's simply no incentive for me to stop using a passcode.
All this pointless and insecure technology, no thanks, you idiot kids and your emojis can keep this shit. I'm not going to adopt technology just because it's new and shiny but otherwise doesn't add anything to my life.
This is duh. Did you think Apple added this "feature" for security? They added it to get biometric data. No one wants to unlock a phone with a face. Just just a PIN. Most people don't even want to bother with PINs or security at all.
No actual security expert would be that worried if just your user name was stolen. Your face is publically displayed in a fair resolution already, and likely appears in governmental and private databases. Actual experts that say biological scans should be your only authentication on important systems aren't experts. It wouldn't be that big a deal at this point for a higher res scan of your face to leak out if there wasn't anything you could do or access with it, like say a access persons phone with all the email, social media, etc, maybe even banking. Sadly, these types of scans will probably be widely used as your only authentication, often remotely, and probably at some point on critical systems. There is no stopping stupid, this is what real experts worry about.
App much?
This is no different than letting Snapchat do it or anything else. Developers can't do it without the user's knowledge, and it isn't giving apps a detailed map of your individual face.
There's basically zero evidence to suggest that Apple is the least bit interested in selling your personal info to anyone. That would be a minuscule revenue stream compared to the billions of dollars they make off of iPhones; and it would put those much more substantial revenue streams at risk. They've made privacy & security part of their brand.
If "google team" and even China already can do a lot of reconstruction from machine learning, even with heavily pixelated sources such as old pics and bad IPCams, I am guessing it won't be long before the "rough map" these apps get can be used for user tagging, and even authentication. Back with fingerprint scans, all the info was at the very least kept safe on hardware and is NEVER directly accessible to apps in any form, other than a boolean stuff like "valid" or "denied" access for authentication. Getting some map, even if pre-processed to suck balls, is an open gateway for fooling FaceID, and I think Apple will be in serious trouble even if they are intentionally adding digital watermarks that attempt to prevent such hacking. I mean, even denuvo gets cracked easily these days, I highly doubt any form of encryption or anti-tampering is enough for keeping "rough data" completely fail-proof, if this data is to be of any use to apps that want to see movement.
Well, that of course assumes the rough map isn't a set of "moods" in the order of magnitude of the hundreds or less. But that pretty much renders the feature "nothing new" material.
1. your thumb-print never leaves the secure enclave of an iPhone, it's not stored electronically anywhere, there's no path for it to be extracted electronically at all. It would be *way* easier to get your thumb print off of a glass then it would to try to electronically hack it out of an iPhone
2. FaceID doesn't use 'image processing' because it doesn't use images, it uses infra-red depth sensing. If you just use it for authentication then it's basically the same deal as the thumbprint; secure enclave and whatnot--it doesn't leave your phone.
3. Apple does not sell your info, ever. Not because they are a naturally good or noble company, but because they would make less money if they did so. Their business model is based on selling physical pieces of hardware, not selling their customer data. They are basically the opposite of Google.
For a very interesting look at all of the types of data being collected today, take a peek at the National Information Exchange Model. or the NIEM on github. The easiest way to look at the data is to download the models and open the niem-????.xlsx spreadsheet (name changes with version). The last time I checked, the rules for adding a schema to this model included a strong requirement that it be in use by two agencies before being eligible because its purpose is "exchange". So, it can be assumed that everything here is in use today.
Spend some time looking and you should find models for storing biometric data ranging from the expected fingerprints, DNA, facial images, scar locations, etc. to other things you may have never thought of such as your gait, lip prints, your lip movement during speech, and your body odor composition. The jxdm models are as or more interesting as the biometrics models and include a lot of biometric model augmentations.
Note that for some of these items such as gait and body odor, you'll need to look back at the 2.1 version of the standard. I don't know when, but at some point I'm guessing they realized this data revealed too much of what they were doing and they pulled some models. The j:PersonAugmentationType entry on the jxdm page was particularly interesting in 2.1.
Facial data flew the coop long ago. There is software available today that can create a 3D facial reconstruction from a single image using a neural network. It's not super accurate, but other software can do it much better with many images. Most people have many images in public whether they know it or not. If you go downtown, how many cameras capture your image? Some cities are now estimated to have an average of three angles on you at any moment.
We shouldn't be concerned about the use of this data by software to deliver us fun, and, down the road a bit, serious features. Unless you want to wear a mask everywhere you go, you can't stop it. Your face, and anything else that can be observed while you're walking down the street, is public data.
We should be concerned about any use of biometric data of any type for authentication on any system that we consider critical or valuable.
App devs will also know how often people use their apps while pooping.
I am guessing it won't be long before the "rough map" these apps get can be used for user tagging, and even authentication.
All you get from the Apple API's is a depth map from either the front or back camera, which is not even close to the detail that FaceID gets via the dot projection system.
Remember that Apple themselves tried fooling FaceID with 3D printed masks of people's faces and even that didn't work. So just how (or why) is some guy in China going to be able to use a crude depth map of your phase to get into your phone??
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Noping right the fuck out of Apple. My 6+ is the last Apple phone I will own after a long succession and strongly forced obsolescence (The 6 has so many issues now on ios11 and is about 1/3 as fast as it was on ios10).
Now Librem, can't wait!
...but is there an option to turn off facial recognition for phone login, so that it defaults to passphrase only from the get go or to some other login option as the default, not facial recognition?
If so, couldn't you just tape over the camera and/or sensor bar on the screen side?
Look to the Black Mirror episode "Fifteen Million Merits" for some foreshadowing of where this tech can go. One of the big touted features of FaceID is that it can tell if your eyes are open or not. Now give apps and advertisers access to this facial scan and it isn't a big leap in logic to make the ads detect when you're not looking at them and politely pause until they have your full attention. No more setting your phone down to ignore for 30 seconds of ad time to get some dumb in game powerup.
Go ahead. Keep in mind that any evidence you provide I will dismiss as being "fake".
Do you see now why we don't ask people to prove a negative?
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