Face unlock on bitcoin wallet devices

[Renampun]

It is on this forum that I knew using fingerprint to unlock wallet device is not good, specifically mobile phones. We know already that we should not have too much bitcoin on a mobile wallet. Let us assume that you have little amount of bitcoin on a mobile bitcoin wallet like Electrum or Bluewallet but you still want security.

Fingerprint is not secure, what about face unlock?

I currently use an iPhone 11 and to open the screen and even some of my important applications, I use a facial recognition system or what is commonly called face unlock, in my opinion this is much safer than fingerprints because my bitcoin wallet was once locked because my fingerprints had a little problem so I have set all the important applications on my iPhone to use face unlock (I use safepal and trustwallet to store my bitcoin and some altcoin assets and I activate face unlock from my iphone settings)

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[Odusko]

Security features on a mobile Bitcoin wallet are integrated using the mobile device security features. IMO if you are using a good device like iPhone or Samsung Galaxy then face unlock or fingerprint scanner should not be an issue. As we know those two brands have the best security & safety feature. You still can add pin code with the finger print scanner to add an extra layer of security. I haven't seen any mobile wallet integrating face unlock feature yet. If you know such a mobile wallet then do share here.

The bigger question is, would you use a face recognition security feature with you Bitcoin wallet if the ops share any mobile wallet that offer such security, i have face lock set on my local banks apps but i still have extra layer of security like pin, and since i already know the security vulnerability that comes with the face lock security i won't have it on my Bitcoin wallet no matter how convincing it looks or sound to me.
I better set a very strong password to protect my wallet since it is not what I use at frequently time but for storage of my coins.

[yazher]

Basically, my brother can easily open my phone because it recognizes him as me, maybe we have almost identical head shapes and eyes though we're not even twins. If it's only a small amount of bitcoins then it should have been no problem at all even if he wants to get it. But face lock is not always guaranteed to be safe since I can tell you right now that it can be opened by someone else other than you.

[Saint-loup]

Maybe he find it hassle since he will not say that if he think its good for him. I also didn't use that feature but not  the same with his reason since I just don't like to use it as we can't avoid to get wound on our hands and I'm worried about if we can't use our finger print to open up our wallet.  But for other its still good since this is additional security measure added for protection so if a user feel to use it then its really a good decision to do. For face unlock well I don't also use that and still doubting to try this feature.

Usually you can always use a pin code to unlock your wallet instead and you can add several fingers from both hands for the fingerprint, so even if you are wounded at several fingers or at a whole hand you will still be able to use the feature with the fingers remaining if you have registered all your fingers, and if you really can't use any of them for some reasons you can use the pin code as an alternative.

I am quoting you both.

@ultrloa. For face unlock, it is not a better security, it will only depreciate the security. It is not advisable at all. I have not seen a wallet that has that feature yet, but on phone, I will not advice people to use it because it is not secure at all.

@Saint-loup. All wallets that have fingerprint also have pin or password, you can enable both if you want. But the secure and safe way is to use only pin or password.

According to who precisely? Pin code or password are not safer, because you can easily lost or forget them, and they can also easily be stolen by someone next to you when you are typing them, or by anyone finding the sheet of paper where you've archived them. Stealing fingerprints is way more difficult, and you are very unlikely to lose them, if you have register all your fingers. But you can try to register some of your toes too, if you are afraid of losing all your fingers.

[Jon_Hodl]

Biometrics are imperfect by design. Sometimes the light will be low or you will have facial hair or makeup on etc. To account for this, all biometrics are designed to unlock your device with less than 100% accuracy.

Using biometrics to unlock a bitcoin wallet is probably not that big of a deal for small amounts of bitcoin that you are not worried about losing but biometrics are best used for usernames and not for passwords or pin codes.

For any serious amounts of bitcoin, a hardware wallet is the best option. If you're super paranoid, then an air-gapped hardware wallet with either a passphrase or multisig provides the absolute highest level of security.   

[Smartvirus]

Fingerprint is not secure, what about face unlock?

I consider finger print or biometric unlocking of devices a dangerous means to privacy and even worst still, face unlock. I mean, why would anyone have that on their wallet even?

In the case of finger print, there are means to get your finger print but the next thing would be your device. While some means might require someone accessing your device by targeting your subconscious moment to get your prints on your device, it poses a challenge of you having to wake up and note what’s being done.

In the case of face unlock, you better be conscious of shadow cast or lights in your face otherwise, your privacy is very much a goner and that makes it even the more risky.

Alphanumeric passwords remains the best means towards protecting your wallet privacy when compared with the other two options.