How Face ID Really Works (And Can It Be Hacked?)

Can Face ID be hacked? Apple says the odds that a random stranger unlocks your iPhone with their face are less than 1 in 1,000,000. And in 2017, a 10-year-old opened his mother's iPhone X the first time he looked at it. Both are true. This is a Wiredeep Fact-Check. First, how Face ID actually works: the flood illuminator, the infrared camera, the dot projector, the depth map, and the Secure Enclave where your face becomes a mathematical representation. Then five viral claims about breaking it, checked against the evidence, with one verdict each. Chapters 0:00 1 in a million vs. a 10-year-old 0:33 Three parts you can't see 2:01 Where your face goes 3:09 Claim 1 · A photo unlocks it 3:34 Claim 2 · Someone who looks like you 4:34 Claim 3 · A $150 mask 5:21 Claim 4 · Tape on glasses 6:13 Claim 5 · Stealing your face data 6:45 The board, and what to do 7:32 Five checks, one answer The verdicts • A photo unlocks it: FALSE. Apple says Face ID always requires depth information, which isn't found in print or 2D digital photographs. I found no credible demonstration of a photo beating it. • Someone who looks like you can open it: CONFIRMED, by Apple. Apple says the probability is higher for twins and siblings who look like you, and for children under 13. Apple's advice: use a passcode. • A $150 mask beats it (Bkav, Nov 2017): UNPROVEN. Bkav is the claimant; nobody independent reproduced it, and TechCrunch reported that Wired and Cloudflare built more detailed masks and failed. • Tape on glasses beats the attention check (Black Hat 2019): LAB ONLY. Shown by Tencent researchers; per Threatpost, the owner has to be asleep or unconscious. I found no public response from Apple. • Someone can extract your face data: NO PUBLIC EVIDENCE. In the sources I checked, nobody has published a way to pull a Face ID template out of an iPhone. What to do: your passcode is the master key. Apple's list of when the iPhone asks for it includes: after a restart, after 48 hours without an unlock, after five failed matches, after a remote lock, and when you start a power off or Emergency SOS. Sources • Apple Support, "About Face ID advanced technology": https://support.apple.com/en-us/102381 • Apple Platform Security, "Face ID and Touch ID security": https://support.apple.com/guide/security/face-id-and-touch-id-security-sec067eb0c9e/web • Apple Support (Face ID setup and use): https://support.apple.com/en-us/108411 • Apple Newsroom, "The future is here: iPhone X" (Sept. 12, 2017): https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/09/the-future-is-here-iphone-x/ • Wired (Nov. 2017), via The Next Web (Nov. 15, 2017): https://thenextweb.com/news/10-year-old-unlocks-his-mums-iphone-with-face-id and iPhone in Canada (Nov. 14, 2017): https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/2017/11/14/kid-bypasses-face-id-on-moms-iphone-x/ • TechCrunch, "You probably don't need to worry about someone hacking your iPhone X's Face ID with a mask" (Nov. 13, 2017): https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/13/apple-face-id-bkav-hack/ • Bkav (the claimant), press release on its second mask (Nov. 27, 2017): https://www.bkav.com/top-new/-/view-content/65202/bkavs-new-mask-beats-face-id-in-twin-way-severity-level-raised-do-not-use-face-id-in-business-transactions • Threatpost, "Researchers Bypass Apple FaceID Using Biometrics 'Achilles Heel'" (Aug. 8, 2019): https://threatpost.com/researchers-bypass-apple-faceid-using-biometrics-achilles-heel/147109/ • Black Hat USA 2019, "Biometric Authentication Under Threat: Liveness Detection Hacking" (slides): https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Wednesday/us-19-Chen-Biometric-Authentication-Under-Threat-Liveness-Detection-Hacking.pdf How we made this: the head, phone, mask, glasses, chip diagram and dot patterns are 3D models and illustrations made for this video. The TrueDepth module and the Secure Enclave diagram are simplified illustrations, not Apple's real parts; the numbers in the diagram are illustrative values. The structured-light explanation describes the general principle, not Apple's exact method. Nothing here shows how to build a mask or glasses. 3D models (Creative Commons, credit required) • Head: "Infinite, 3D Head Scan" by Lee Perry-Smith (triplegangers.com), CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ • iPhone: "Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max Black" by polyman, Sketchfab, CC BY 4.0: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/apple-iphone-15-pro-max-black-df17520841214c1792fb8a44c6783ee7 (lock screen added by us) Disclosure: researched and written with help from Claude, a model made by Anthropic. The narrator is a synthetic text-to-speech voice. Original score, made for this video. ⚡ Wiredeep: the tech you use every day, explained. 👉 Subscribe for the next Fact-Check! #faceid #iphone #factcheck