How do I change from Touch ID to facial recognition on my iPad?
My Touch ID does not recognize me. How do I change it to facial recognition?
iPad mini 6, iPadOS 18
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For information, all models of iPad in recent years support either TouchID or FaceID - but not both. Each is reliant upon specific hardware components...
All iPad models that support TouchID have a physical Home Button at bottom centre of the screen - within which is the TouchID sensor - or for iPad Air4+, mini6+ and iPad10+ incorporate the TouchID sensor within the Top (Sleep/Wake) button.
iPad models supporting FaceID, specifically iPad Pro models of recent years, have a FaceID sensor (consisting of an Infrared Dot Projector and TrueDepth Camera array) - this sensor being absent from iPad models that support TouchID.
FaceID is offers both higher security and stronger authentication than TouchID - with a significantly lower false positive authentication rate. Fingerprints can be easily damaged, leading to a higher rejection rate for the bona-fide owner. In some environments, in particular those with low humidity, or for users with very dry skin, TouchID may not work at all. FaceID removes the physical limitations of an electro-optical touch sensor, instead using a sophisticated 3D optical system to authenticate the user.
In addition to authentication, the FaceID camera system also provides attention-aware capabilities and functions that simply cannot be implemented using TouchID. The attention-aware features are unobtrusive - and, for most part, you may not even be aware that they are there until such time as you switch-back to using a device that doesn’t have these capabilities.
