Apple X's Face ID Feature Places Spotlight On Facial Recognition Technology, Raising Numerous Mobile Privacy And Data Usage Issues

This week's Apple X announcement was not more than a few hours old, and the questions began to come in. Apple's introduction of Face ID facial recognition on its new phone – although already available in some form on several Android phones – generated curiosity, concerns and creativity.  Unfortunately, the details about specifically how the recognition feature will really work are yet unknown.  All the public knows right now is that the phone's facial "capture" function, powered by an updated camera and sensor array, will direct 30,000 infrared dots around a user's face and create a hashed value that will presumably be matched against a user's face during the unlocking procedure.

The questions and issues this raises are too numerous and varied to address in a single blog post. I will simply point out that the concerns over Face ID range from spoofing (e.g., Can the phone be unlocked by a picture? [Apple says no, explaining that the system will map the depth of