If the technology is bad and dangerous, stop buying it. Publicly and loudly discourage people from buying it. Go to the media, drum up hysteria about the dangers of FaceID. Bury the technology under public skepticism. Convince people that biometrics are dangerous and put them at much greater risk than before, and send a clear message to the industry when biometric sales tank.
Anything else is hypocrisy.
As an individual, I do what you suggest. The problem happens when it's imposed on you. Since most people couldn't care less about privacy, surveillance, and continuous data collection, the result is this:
- You don't want to give your biometrics for a driver's license or passport? Fine, but you won't be allowed to drive or travel. Or open a bank account or work or get social services.
- You don't want to enroll your fingerprints (or palm/retina/iris) for the locks and access cards at your new job. OK, but don't come back to work tomorrow.
- Soon, 3-5 years from now, when every smartphone uses facial recognition and it is mandatory, then what? Stick with your older smartphone? It won't run any future apps and won't have access to whatever new communication technologies that emerge.
You're giving constructive advice -- which is great. But it's not that easy when most people don't give a hoot about privacy and data collection, and it's very difficult to convince them otherwise.
Or buy one if you want one and use an alphanumeric passcode if you don't like biometrics.
And if for some reason they do, change platforms then.
Long ago, no one thought mobiles and laptops would not have removable batteries either.
The idea Apple would remove passcodes is a paranoid fantasy on par with them removing the touch screen to force you to use Siri.
95%+ of these cases where a very similar face can open the phone is because they trained the iphone to recognize both faces. Caused by very similar looking family members sharing passcodes, each failed attempt adds the face to the model. If you don’t want your very similar brother to access your iphone X, the fix is simple, dint give him your passcode.
FaceID is part of making phones even more secure. Most people won’t use passcodes. TouchID can’t work with gloves, wet/sweaty fingers, etc. FaceID is much easier to setup, and displays notification details without forcing you to unlock. Whichever you prefer, either allows you to have a far more secure passcode without it being a hassle.
Have you not seen enough evidence that this is harmful?
Put this info in context: frequency of this vs correctly guessing a passcode; probability that your attacker is also the person with a similar face; that it can be disabled.
I wish Face ID were perfect too. But please don't be rash.