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Comment by ekzy | Hacker News Reader

It would be interesting if we could specify a particular face pattern to unlock the phone. Imagine you set up your phone to open only if you smile, now if someone picks up your phone and try to unlock it by pointing it at your face, not smiling would be easier than closing your eyes or looking away. Not even mentioning the health benefit of just smiling :)

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I would look forward to the headline where the police had to tickle the accused in order to get access to his phone against his will.

It would be awkward to smile/pose before/after a funeral, just because I need to call my mum or check my email...

That being said, I do think that there could be a legitimate use case here. One could set up a particular "emotion" (a face pattern) associated with someone forcing them to unlock a phone using their face. I mean, if someone pulls a gun or a knife on me, I'll probably just do as they say and look at the phone, rather than risk an additional hole in my body. But unlocking a phone and sending a distress call is something I could live with.

y, if someone has a knife or gun I would just give them what they want and worry about a distress call after you're safe instead of getting fancy trying to activate an 'I'm being mugged' feature.

I think that could be a nice feature but would add stress to the situation when you should just be focussed on staying alive trying to remember how to do that special thing or enter an alternate code.

I'm thinking of a situation when the phone, for example, is not enough for them. What if the don't leave you alone after that? What if you're a girl and they are going to try to rape you? What I'm thinking of is not about a "fancy" help-me-I'm-being-mugged "duck-face" pose, but actually a face pattern which, simple enough, could offer assistance in a difficult situation. What if they take away the phone and I'm left with no change of calling for an ambulance?

You are right, though, that this requires some "friction" and probably some self control.

As with almost all things, YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE THAT FEATURE.

They mentioned that it won't unlock if your eyes are closed or you are looking away. Doesn't help in a carjacking scenario, I guess.

Huh. Taking that a step further, instead of Face ID being a (probably) static shot of your face, what if it were a sequence? For example, if you could set your "code" to be smiling and then frowning? Or, given it can detect eye location ("awareness"), looking at different corners of the phone in a particular sequence?

Isn't this already possible by smiling while training your phone?

I am not sure but I think that if you smiled while training your phone you'd still be able to unlock it with any other facial expression

I'd like to see a duress expression. Spitting your tongue out would disable the face authentication and require a PIN.

Another approach might be to have your eyes follow a pattern. Either a static pattern which is always the same, or a dynamic pattern with a challenge each time.

Might not be completely universal though...

I seem to recall a video-based one that did something like this - it would tell you to make a specific facial posture to unlock the device, maybe Google's?

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