New iPhone brings face recognition (and fears) to the masses

Every time I go abroad or return to Japan I have my photo taken which is checked against my passport.

Facial recognition technology is already here!

Think I will skip this one and wait for the iPhone 20 xyz plus with the interactive Siri hologram.

Almost.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/31/technology/gadgets/iphone-x-first-impressions/index.html

People don't understand how this works vs. traditional facial recognition. You're not going to be able to unlock the phone with a stolen photo because of the layers of depth involved in the recognition process. YES, it's possible that information could be stolen from hacked phones and used nefariously, but not really any more than fingerprints and facial scans from existing photos (with cameras that don't have the depth focus of the new phone).

The biggest problem I have with the facial recognition unlocking is that, while the fingerprint system can be infuriating if your fingers are slightly wet or have some residue or something on them, you can at least open/unlock the phone when pulling it out if you know what you are doing (which can also create problems if you do it by accident, granted), whereas you have to now literally look at the phone to unlock it now, which could mean you have to stop what you are doing instead of multi-tasking. I know... small thing, but I can see it being problematic -- for example, for those who DO walk and use phones at the same time you can pay attention to your surroundings and unlock your phone while pulling it out with a finger on the home button on current phones, but you would have to take your focus off your surroundings to look at and unlock the new phone. Now, argue that you should stop to do that anyway if you like, that is not the point.

Can this feature be switched off?

Can this feature be switched off?

Yes.

What is to stop the police holding the phone to a suspect face and unlocking it ?

or a mugger, so that he/she can then reset the face required ?

No need to know the password to gain access.