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Facing facts: Police say thieves in downtown Boston and Chinatown using phone facial recognition to unlock the phones they've just stolen

Boston Police report thieves downtown and in the Theater District are robbing people of their phones, then holding up the phones to their victims' faces to use the "Face ID" feature to unlock them.

Police describe one such incident, involving an iPhone robbery outside 224 Tremont St. near Stuart Street, around 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 7:

The victim reported that he was in the area when he was surrounded by three unknown black male suspects, approximately in their 20’s. The victim reported that one of the males forcibly took his cellphone from his hand before fleeing the area on foot. Detectives stated that the suspect then returned to the crime scene and held up the stolen phone to the victim's face to unlock it with the ‘Face ID’ feature. The following day the victim discovered several of his financial accounts had been compromised, resulting in multiple fraudulent charges.

Police add they are investigating several other similar robberies in the area. Although the incident involved an iPhone, some Android phones also allow for facial unlocking.

Police offer some tips, starting with using a passcode instead of your face to unlock your phone. Also, don't have your phone remember your logins and passwords for accounts on banking and other financial sites and apps. And if your phone does get stolen, either use a "Lost" feature to disable or brick it - and then change your financial passwords as soon as you can.

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Comments

Get an Android phone.

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Which also allow face unlock.

People on all platforms make bad security choices

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Not all, though.

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i remember the galaxy-s4 had a feature where the front-facing camera would track your eye balls and would automatically pause/play videos (or auto-scroll down on web-pages if your eyes are near the bottom) based on if you are looking at the screen (forcing you to sit thru and pay attention to yootoob ads). most everyone quickly disabled that in settings.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/eye-tracking-tech-in-the-samsung-galaxy...

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and have required “attention” to unlock with Face ID since day 1. source: me having an iPhone

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Nobody wants an android. LOL ;p

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You really think it's worthwhile resurrecting the Mac vs. PC thing again? Because that's what you're doing. I thought everyone had agreed it was a waste of time.

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We’re bringing it back baby!

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Arguing about how one product is superior to the largely exact same competing product while espousing just how excited they are to commit to throwing large sums of money at strangely specific uber-wealthy corporations who do not have the consumer's best interest in mind was lame enough then to pin a giant label to yourself declaring that you are an utter dolt and not worth talking to then and is even more so now. How about pivoting into flip phones vs smartphones instead? It's time to really bring it back.

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Commenters on uHub are always spiraling. It’s just some friendly banter. RELAX! #teamiPhone ;p

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And I think the former PC, Brookline's own John Hodgman would agree. I support anything to bring this national treasure more work (and if you like comedy, I highly recommend the Judge John Hodgman Podcast).

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...gave me an award on Reddit once. I almost put that fact on my resume.

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everyone knows the real fight is the heretic vi(m) versus the true defender of the faith, emacs!

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Besides, everybody knows vi sucks.

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More for me!!!!

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And when they demand your passcode, you do what?

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or they mite cut off your thumb for the fingerprint reader.

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Tell them you keep your thumb in a safe in your closet.

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After Ice T's toddler was able to unlock his iphone using faceID. I question how secure these things really are. I mean his kid looks identically to him but still.

Often thought I'd love to setup a table with iphones to see if I could get people with similar face size/structure to unlock them.

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But it doesn't on dead people, and I'm not sure if you opened up a dead persons eyes it would work either but.....go ahead and try it with your eyes closed, it doesn't work for me.

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What if you die with your eyes open?

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Could've been worse

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As mentioned:

Also, don't have your phone remember your logins and passwords for accounts on banking and other financial sites and apps.

So, you have these accounts with all your hard-earned money in them, and you have your phone remember your IDs and passwords? Really?

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