Intrusive Law Enforcement Agencies Celebrate iPhone X
First, I want to congratulate @apple for introducing a $1000 phone with features like wireless charging and an edge-to-edge screen that my last two or three android phones have already had. Perhaps the most, or only, interesting new feature is the facial recognition. Apple is abandoning fingerprint scanning in favor of facial recognition to unlock the phone.
I mention the law enforcement angle in the title because it has been a bone of contention how far law enforcement can go to make someone unlock their phone. Clearly, when unlocking was PIN only, one only had to declare they forgot and no one could really disprove that. With fingerprint scanning, it has been a point that is still in the courts (I believe) as to whether LE can force someone to unlock the phone with their finger. Now, however, all they will have to do is hold the phone up to the suspect's face. This less invasive unlocking technique is probably an everyday hassle reduction, but will make the phone incrementally less secure from snooping.
Morbid postscript: I wonder if this works on a corpse? Is there a heat sensor of some sort, or are the kids going to be saying "let's get the eyes on dad's body open so we can get his phone unlocked".
