Samsung, Google and Apple all process and store the face data used to unlock their phones on the device itself. None of the three uploads it to company servers or shares it with other services, according to the companies’ published documentation as reviewed by MakeUseOf.
Samsung’s setup is the least uniform, because its phones don’t all handle faces the same way. It uses a 2D camera-based system rather than a depth-based one, and the company says it keeps facial data in its on-device, hardware-isolated Knox security processor without uploading it to the cloud or Samsung servers. Samsung also warns that face recognition is less secure than a pattern, PIN or password, which is why Galaxy phones typically don’t let you approve payments with your face.
Google says the Pixel face model is stored in secure hardware on the device, protected by the Titan M2 security chip, and all processing happens locally. The images used for face unlock aren’t stored as photos and aren’t shared with Google services or other apps. On the Pixel 8 and newer, face unlock can also authorize app sign-ins and purchases.
Apple’s Face ID uses the TrueDepth camera to project thousands of invisible dots onto the user’s face, and an infrared camera reads them to build a depth map. Apple’s Face ID privacy page says the data, including mathematical representations of your face, is encrypted and protected with a key available only to the Secure Enclave, and that it “does not leave your device, and is never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else.” Apple also says iOS, apps, the user and even Apple itself can’t access it.
The stored data changes as you use it. Apple refines it over time, which is how Face ID keeps working after makeup or a new haircut. Tapping Reset Face ID in Settings deletes the data, mathematical representations included, from the device.
One Google feature does send face data off the phone. For selfie video sign-in, Google said in an Oct. 15 blog post that it encrypts and stores a user’s enrolled reference video on its servers, so the account can still be recovered if the device holding its passkeys is lost. The video recorded during a sign-in attempt is “permanently deleted immediately after the face matching is complete.” Users can delete the reference video at any time, and it is removed from Google’s servers if the account is deleted. Google contrasted this with face unlock, where data is strictly stored on the phone.
Apple, meanwhile, is fighting a biometric privacy class action over its Photos app, filed in 2020 under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. Plaintiffs allege the app’s People album creates and stores “faceprints” from users’ photos without the consent the law requires. In a Sept. 30 order, U.S. District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel denied most of Apple’s motion for summary judgment, finding a jury could conclude the faceprints are scans of face geometry capable of identifying a person. Apple won on one point: the cropped face images its software cuts from photos are not biometric data. The order was unsealed Oct. 8, and Reuters looked at what the case means for the law on Oct. 16.
Apple had argued it doesn’t possess the data because processing happens on the device and iCloud photos are encrypted. The judge rejected that, pointing to Apple’s control over how faceprints are created, stored and secured. The case concerns photo-library processing, not the Face ID system that unlocks iPhones, and Apple has not been found liable or ordered to pay damages.