Google’s Pixel 4 smartphone feature a brand new Face Unlock system that not only allows you to login to your phone by looking at it, but also to login to apps for banking, password management, or other activities where security is important.

The only catch is that developers need to explicitly update their apps to support Pixel 4 Face Unlock. And since Google’s latest phones don’t have fingerprint sensors, that means that you may not be able to use biometric security with some apps until they are updated.

Or you can root your phone and install the Fingerface Xposed module.

Basically Fingerface detects when an app that uses Google’s fingerprint API is requesting a scan of your fingerprint… and it brings up Google’s new BiometricPrompt dialog instead.

The workaround means that you can use Face Unlock to login to apps that wouldn’t normally support the feature.

The catch is that you’ll need to root your phone and install the Xposed framework first, and then install the Fingerface module.

Originally developed by xda-developer forum member SemonCat, the module is open source and you can find the code at github or pay $0.99 to install it from the Google Play Store.

Alternately, you could download a fork of Fingerface developed by John Wu, the developer of Magisk, the tool most commonly used to root Android devices these days. His version includes a number of fixes, so if I were going to jump through the hoops necessary to get this Face Unlock workaround up and running, that’s probably the version I’d use.

Or you could just wait for third-party app developers to add native support for the Pixel 4 Face Unlock feature.

via xda-developers

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One reply on “Hack allows Pixel 4 Face Unlock to work with unsupported apps (root required)”

  1. So you need to root so you can run a hack so you can use questionable biometric security? This isn’t going to end well…

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