16/12/2021
Facial recognition has been a boon for the majority of smartphone users, granting them instant access to their phone and a lot of services within it. However, it comes with its own set of drawbacks. As a shining example of one such flaw, a new lawsuit in China shows how a man managed to siphon off lakhs of Rupees from the account of his then-girlfriend using Face ID.
The incident has been highlighted in a new report by The Times. As per the report, a Chinese man has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for cheating his girlfriend off £18,000 (around Rs 18 lakh). How you ask? The man scanned the victim's face through facial recognition on her phone while she was sleeping.
Citing state media and court documents, the report by The Times mentions that the accused gained access to the girl's bank account through her phone's facial recognition while she was sleeping. For this, he pulled up his ex-girlfriend's eyelids as she slept for the face recognition to work.
The sentence has been handed out to the accused by a district people's court in the southern city of Nanning. Aged 28, the defendant was found guilty of using facial recognition on his then-girlfriend's phone to gain access to her Alipay account. Identified by his family name - Huang, the man first used the fingerprints of the victims to unlock her Huawei mobile phone.