Google’s latest Pixel phones, the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, returned to facial recognition on Thursday after a brief hiatus due to cost and performance challenges, according to three former employees of the Alphabet unit with knowledge of the work. The new Pixel 7 isn’t as powerful as Apple’s Face ID unlocking mechanism, as it can struggle in low light and be more easily spoofed. Additionally, Google says it’s not secure enough to log into apps or make payments.
Google has gotten stricter about rolling out facial recognition products, in part because of questions about how it would perform on darker skin. Since the last Pixel with the feature launched in 2019, the company has spent time reviewing its approach to training and testing facial recognition, one of the sources said.
Google declined to comment on several specific questions about its history of face unlocking. It generally said, “Thanks to advanced machine learning models for face recognition, the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro have face unlock, but we do it slightly differently.” It added, “We achieved this with the front-facing camera. Good facial accuracy performance.”
Google’s pursuit of face unlocking on Android smartphones spanned at least a decade, but Apple faced more pressure when it released Face ID in September 2017, sources said.
By then, Google had been working to design a system that would work fast without being spoofed, or using photos or hyper-realistic clothing to trick someone’s phone into unlocking, one of the sources said. Engineers have toyed with the need to smile or wink — proving one’s “vitality” — to combat deception, sources said, but it was awkward and slow.
Another source noted that after Apple’s Face ID, which uses a depth-sensing and infrared camera called TrueDepth to map faces, Google executives signed off on a similar technology. Google’s Pixel 4, released in 2019, called its infrared depth-sensing setting uDepth.
According to Google, it performed well, including a 1 in 50,000 chance of unlocking the phone to obtain an unauthorized face in dark conditions.
But equipment is expensive. While Apple sells 240 million iPhones a year, Google has sold several million, making it impossible to buy parts at Apple’s volume discounts.
According to sources, Google dropped uDepth in the Pixel 5 in 2020 due to cost reasons. Due to the pandemic, Google has reason to exclude the feature from last year’s Pixel 6 and increase research time, two sources said.
Face unlock on new phones relies on the typical front-facing camera. But unlike previous systems, it can’t securely unlock apps and payments, as Google says the potential for deception — such as by holding a user’s photo — is greater than 20 percent, higher than it requires to be considered the most “safe” 7% threshold.
Low light and sunglasses can also cause trouble, Google said, noting that fingerprint unlocking remains an option.
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Hazel Yu 