Leaf&Core

Touch ID is Looking Good 6 Months Into COVID, Huh?

Danielle from Leaf and Core
Reading Time: 2 minutes.

These days, if I’m outside and my phone rings or I get a message, I likely ignore it. Do I want to punch in my 15-digit passcode just to answer a text? No. I throw my phone in a bag and forget it. I used to use my iPhone to pay for groceries at the corner store. Now? I use my Apple Watch, because it’s already authenticated. I don’t like that it’s less secure, but it works.

The New York Metro Transit Authority (MTA) is currently asking Apple to make Face ID work with a mask. This is so people can unlock their iPhones to use them at the few stations that are equipped with iPhone payment through OMNY. Unless they have an Apple Watch, their options are limited. They can either pull their mask down, which contaminates the mask, or they can punch in a (hopefully long) pin. People opt for the latter, and this spreads COVID-19.

You know what solves this problem? Touch ID.

Face ID Was a Mistake

Face ID can be quite convenient. But when it’s the only option people have for bio-authentication, we run into many problems. First, there’s the fact that twins can unlock each other’s phones. Even siblings who look alike and in some cases, parents and their children, can access each other’s phones. Therefore, Face ID is less secure. Twins have different fingerprints. This wasn’t a problem with Touch ID.

Secondly, blind people or people with little to no control of their eyes cannot use Face ID in a secure manner. They have to disable the “Requires attention” feature, which means the phone is unlocked as long as their face is within view of the device. This makes them easy targets for theft. Apple made blind people larger targets for theft. Let that sink in for a second. Unlocking an iPhone with VoiceOver and the pin is already difficult enough, requiring muscle memory and a particular feature turned on in settings, or an awkward system that requires users to tap in the same location twice for each pin number. Apple made their devices harder to use for those with different accessibility demands.

Finally, we have the issue that brought us here today: masks. Face ID cannot work with a mask. If it did, it would be horribly insecure. Even before the pandemic, the wearing of masks was incredibly common in Asia. People wore masks if they were sick recently, to help stop the spread of illnesses like the common cold. Now, with COVID-19, we all have to wear masks to eradicate the disease. Touching your mask can contaminate it. Either it will make you spread COVID-19, which you may have without knowing, or you could introduce COVID-19 to the thing you’re breathing through, giving you the disease. There’s no winning.

Well, actually, there is.

Touch ID

Touch ID had none of these problems. An in-display fingerprint reader would allow Apple to have its cake and eat it too. However, they could also put a fingerprint reader in a button, or on the back of the device like every other phone manufacturer has managed to do. Apple could have enabled both Face ID and Touch ID on their devices. Because they didn’t, iPhone owners are less likely to be safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. People with vision impairments are affected every day. And we’re all dealing with having security that a doppelgänger could unlock.

Touch ID solves every problem with Face ID. Why did Apple get rid of it?

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