Facial recognition is no match for face masks, but things are changing fast

In a major about-face in public health policy, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, and state and local health officials around the country recently began urging people to wear homemade face masks when they're out in public. The directive is not meant to replace social distancing, but to reduce the spread of infection and ensure the most effective personal protective equipment goes to health care workers on the front line. But it could also throw a wrench in a number of facial recognition applications, including those used to unlock smartphones. Less than a year old, Google's facial recognition system on Pixel 4 smartphones is built to recognize a person even if they've shaved their beard or are wearing sunglasses, but Face Unlock for Pixel 4 is rendered virtually useless by homemade face masks. A Google spokesperson told VentureBeat that Face Unlock isn't made to recognize people wearing face masks and declined to say whether the company is working to add that capability to its system.