Ice Cream Sandwich's Face Unlock may be fooled by photos

Face Unlock is one of the most exciting new features for Ice Cream Sandwich but, according to a Google spokesperson, the idea that hackers could access your smartphone using a photo of your face “might work“.

Accepting Google’s claim this innovative piece of technology “will only get better”, this is still a significant setback for Android 4.0 if found to be the case. The Ice Cream Sandwich feature should only allow use of a handset when it recognises ‘real’ facial features.

The possibility of such a bug occurring had previously been denied by Android developer Tim Bray, who when responding to an accusation Face Unlock was hackable stated, “Nope. Give us some credit.”