The mighty Google this week filed a patent for securing a mobile device using facial recognition technology. The idea is for the user to set up a ‘facial landmark‘, for example sticking their tongue out or wrinkling their nose, after which they can unlock their device by repeating the ‘faceword’.

If the idea sounds somewhat implausible, it may help to remember that pattern recognition in the form of striping on a screen is already hugely popular on many mobile phones, precisely because users find it very difficult to remember complex passwords or even PIN numbers. According to Bill Walker from security analysts QA, over half of men and women have a password on their device… “but almost a fifth (19 percent) of men and almost a quarter of women (24 percent) admit to writing that password down somewhere so they don’t forget it – defeating the whole objective.”

We have to say, the idea of people standing around grimacing at their phones or worse could make life unbearable on a crowded commute. It’s bad enough people talking loudly or humming tunelessly with their music, but to add in horrible faces could just about tip us over into outright Luddism. In the meantime, enjoy yourself with Google Patent No 8,457,367.

‘The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether a sufficient similarity exists between the first image and the second image to indicate a consistent user identity further comprises at least one of: 1) performing facial recognition analysis on both of the first image and the second image, and 2) comparing one or more characteristics of the first image to one or more corresponding characteristics of the second image, and 3) determining a similarity score based on the comparison, wherein the sufficient similarity is determined to exist when the similarity score exceeds a similarity score threshold.’