Comment by pmontra | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmontra | Hacker News Reader

The FaceID camera is infrared and can see in the dark [1].

According to the Post "Once you give it permission, an active app keeps on having access to your face until you delete it or dig into advanced settings. There’s no option that says, “Just for the next five minutes.”"

So a random developer can (kind of) look at us when we turn the light off. Not only that, those cameras work also in the sunlight. You can go on YouTube and search "clothes transparent to infrared". Not much, especially considering that the app is not getting a real image, but still somebody will be uncomfortable with that.

However there also legit and interesting applications for infrared cameras and they've been on sale for a long time. What's changing is the number of those cameras that are getting around.

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/13/how-iphone-x-face-id-wo...

"Once you give it permission, an active app keeps on having access to your face”

Isn’t the definition of an active app, one that is open and in the foreground?

The minute the phone sleeps, or the app is put into the background, access becomes more at Apple’s discretion.

I’d expect an app running in the foreground to be able to keep using the camera as long as needed..

Or is your point more: allowing once allows it every time the app opens, with no option to repeatedly prompt?

I have no direct experience of iOs but according to the post it's as you wrote. It could be an app that needs the camera once for some sensible reason, then it can use it forever when it's active even if it wouldn't need it from the point of view of the user.

Users might notice the battery penalty.

App developers aren't given raw access to the IR camera though.

The permissions model is the same as the cameras.

I think the visual-spectrum cameras provide _a lot_ more sensitive data than the rough facial depth data. What does your phone “see” on a daily basis? Have you taken your phone into the bathroom with you lately?

Being able to handle the dark doesn't seem like that big a deal — most of the time people use their phone in well lit areas, and if they aren't, their phone generally lights up their face.

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