i3 - November/December 2017 - 14

Tech

By Murray Slovick

A T EC H TO WATC H

The Labyrinth
of Biometric
Possibility

A phone designer can allow or deny
access to a smartphone several ways
including biometric approaches such as
voice, fingerprint and face recognition.
These methods are beginning to replace
passwords because the technology is convenient and less time consuming. Safer,
too - especially if you use a birthday or
1234 to protect important information.
Four years ago Apple's Touch ID fingerprint identity sensor popularized biometrics on mainstream smartphones. With
the launch of iPhone X in September,
Apple eliminated the fingerprint sensor
from the device, instead creating a detailed 3D map of your face with its Face ID
system, which uses a selfie-type setup
called the "TrueDepth camera system."
TrueDepth is an engineering expedition into the labyrinth of biometric
possibility. It employs a 7MP frontfacing camera and an infrared emitter
that projects more than 30,000 dots onto
the user's face, visible only to an infrared
camera. A proximity sensor allows the
system to know when a user is close
enough (it warns the user when he/she
is out of range) and an ambient light
sensor. The iPhone X also has an infrared
(IR) illuminator so the system will
work in the dark. The light projections
and sensor data are then fed to iPhone X's
A11 chipset, a proprietary dualcore design that processes
the biometric facial recognition
data in real time.

Secure and Accurate

The facial images from iPhone X are
securely stored on the phone's Secure
Enclave security chip, not in the cloud.
Face ID uses machine learning to recognize
your face. Any changes in your appearance
are factored in to an updated image and
the dot pattern via neural networks that
create a mathematical model of your
face. Apple reports it will recognize you
even if you put on eyeglasses or a hat.
TouchID only had a one in 50,000 chance
of unlocking for the wrong fingerprint.
But Face ID is even better: it has a one in
1,000,000 error rate, says Apple. The
company even worked with special effects
mask-makers in Hollywood to ensure it
would be difficult to spoof.
Using facial recognition for unlocking
the iPhone X (as well as activating Apple
Pay) may seem vaguely similar to 2010's
Microsoft Kinect, which measured depth,
position and motion using a color video
camera and an infrared light sensor to
log you onto your Xbox Live account.
A facial recognition system was created
with the Microsoft Kinect v2 using a facial
mapping library distributed with the
Kinect v2 SDK (Software developer's kit)
as a basis for the algorithm. The system
extracted 31 points representing various
facial landmarks, which created a reference
INFRARED CAMERA
The camera reads the dot pattern
captured as an infrared image,
then sends the data to the A11
Bionic chip to confirm a match.
FLOOD ILLUMINATOR
Invisible infrared light
helps identify your face
even when it's dark.

DOT PROJECTOR
More than 30,000
invisible dots are
projected onto your
face to build your
unique facial map.

data set. In 2013, Apple acquired
PrimeSense, developer of the structured
light sensor for the original Kinect.
EyeLock, a subsidiary of VOXX
International, is also improving its realtime iris and facial authentication, while
the auto company Ford is seeking to put
biometric sensors into cars. Intel also has
delivered a depth-measuring RealSense
system that, like Kinect, provides laptops
equipped with Microsoft's Windows Hello
with facial recognition and gesture recognition capability. RealSense contains dualinfrared cameras for depth sensing
(calculated based on parallax mapping -
the same way the human eye works) and
a high-resolution camera that can capture
images in 1080p. Unfortunately, RealSense
is too large and power hungry to be used
in a small device like a smartphone.
Qualcomm has expanded its Spectra
Module Program with improved biometric
authentication and high-resolution
depth sensing. The company will include
the new technology in its Snapdragon
mobile processors and make the Spectra
processor available for Android phones.
Acuity Market Intelligence projects by
2022 global mobile biometric revenues
will reach $50.6 billion annually. This
includes 2.7 billion biometrically enabled
smart mobile devices generating $3.1 billion in biometric sensor revenue annually.
The firm projects by 2020, biometrics will
be standard on 100 percent of the nearly
2.4 billion mobile devices sold each year,
marking a new milestone in security.

2018

Come to CES 2018 to see how the
tech world is embracing biometrics to
improve security and accessibility.

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

Courtesy Apple

ith iPhone X, Apple
leads the charge
toward using face
recognition for primary smartphone security technology.

Apple's iPhone X
creates a detailed
3D map of your
face with its
Face ID system.

http://CES.tech http://www.CES.tech

i3 - November/December 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - November/December 2017