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Face unlock easily defeated with photo in over 30 smartphone models
July 02, 2025
We’ve seen a resurgence inface unlockacross the mobile industry, arguably due to Apple’siPhone Xtouting the technology. Unfortunately, a new study shows that plenty of phones can be defeated with a simple photo.
The DutchConsumentenbondorganization found that out of 110 devices tested, 42 could be unlocked with a high quality photo of the owner (h/t:The Register). To be fair, the organization counted regional and dual-SIM variants as separate models in its testing, so the real number of dodgy devices is actually in the 30s.
Nevertheless, this still represents a massive number of devices that are vulnerable to a simple photo. The list wasn’t restricted to a few manufacturers either, as the likes ofAlcatel,BlackBerry,Huawei,Lenovo,Nokia,Sony, andXiaomiwere all featured here.
Most of these phones were budget devices, but we also have a few flagships affected by shoddy face unlock. These devices include theHTC U11 Plus, theHUAWEI P20 Pro, and Sony’sXperia XZ2series.
There were plenty of devices that passed the test, however, including the Alcatel 3V,HONOR 10,HTC U12 Plus,HUAWEI Mate 20series, theOnePlus 5T,OnePlus 6, and Samsung’s 2018 flagships. Additionally, all 2018 iPhone models passed the test. Oddly enough, the consumer watchdog also counted different storage variants as separate entries. Weird.
Anyway, the organization found that several unlocked devices had more stringent face unlock settings to defeat photos, such as LG’s 2018 flagships and theHONOR 7A. You can check out the full list below.
If anything, we hope this study shames brands into paying more attention to facial recognition. Do you use face unlock on your smartphone? Let us know in the comments!
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