You must open your eyes to unlock Pixel 4

Facial recognition is a biometric verification method that comes with many smartphones. It only needs to scan the face to unlock in seconds without the need for the user to enter the phone password.

Although facial recognition is an active recognition, it may also have passive recognition in some cases, such as your friend holding your mobile phone to scan your face to unlock the phone.

Especially when your friend is quietly scanning and unlocking when you are sleeping, it should be very easy, so this situation is a potential security risk for users.

“Papercraft Google Pixel 4 XL” by It’s Charlie is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

Last fall, some users discovered that the Google Pixel 4 series could be unlocked without opening their eyes. That is, Google did not verify the user’s status.

Regardless of whether the user does not open his eyes or does not look at the screen at all, as long as Google detects the user’s face and passes the authentication, it is regarded as completing the facial authentication.

Obviously, if someone with bad intentions can pick up your phone and unlock it while you are asleep, this problem is also regarded by many users as a security flaw in Pixel 4.

Google then confirmed the problem and solved the problem in the new firmware released today. Now users need to open their eyes if they want to unlock the face.

In the latest firmware released by Google, the security function with wide-open eyes can be unlocked by default, but users can also turn off this option in the settings themselves.

After closing, you do not need to open your eyes to unlock, but for security reasons, Google recommends that users turn on this option to ensure that users can unlock it only when they know it.

Via: Neowin