OnePlus 6 face unlock can be easily fooled with printed pictures

The OnePlus 6 looks like it is one of the best fantastic flagships released this year, just don’t trust its face unlock feature. OnePlus introduced the biometric feature last year with the OnePlus 5 (and later with the OnePlus 5T), yet it seems a year later that it is just as easy to fool with the OnePlus 6 using regular printed pictures of a face.

First reported by 9to5Google, Twitter user Rik (@rikvdujin) posted a video online showing just how easy it is to fool the OnePlus 6’s face unlock with a printed colored pictures. The video shows off the process of unlocking the OnePlus 6 with a printed picture and although it took a little maneuvering, the phone was unlocked.

Following the posting of the video, Rik updated in the Twitter thread stating that he attempted again to unlock the OnePlus 6 with a black and white printed picture and claims to have worked as well.

However, later Android Police attempted to do the same with a printed picture but failed to activate the OnePlus 6’s face unlock. That’s with the big caveat that the printed picture they used was of extremely poor quality. The picture used by Rik was of higher resolution and didn’t include the weird vertical printing lines in Android Police’s attempt.

It still seems like face unlock on the OnePlus 6 should not be trusted. Sure, you can use it to unlock your phone, but if you carry important information in your phone then you should probably just stick to the back mounted fingerprint scanner for maximum security.

The OnePlus 6, like Samsung phones before it, uses a 2D facial scanning system that doesn’t detect depth like the iPhone X with its infrared scanner. This means that if you use a good picture, the face unlock can be fooled rather easily.

For the time being, while Android manufacturers catch up to Apple’s Face ID, be wary of how effortlessly it can be to bypass the current face unlock options offered.