On Friday Patently Apple posted a report titled "Microsoft Invents a next-gen 'Depth+Multi-Spectral' Camera for Advanced 3D Facial Recognition to Match Apple's Face ID." The report noted how Apple's revolutionary 3D Face ID was vastly superior to their competitors facial recognition methods using 2D which was in the press many times shown to be fooled with photos or masks. The report covered a Microsoft patent showing how the company wants to match or surpass Face ID, likely as soon as Microsoft's new foldable devices debut in Q4 2020.

Masks and simple photographs are enough to fool some facial recognition technology, highlighting a major shortcoming in what is billed as a more effective security tool.

The test, by artificial intelligence company Kneron, involved visiting public locations and tricking facial recognition terminals into allowing payment or access.

For example, in stores in Asia—where facial recognition technology is deployed widely—the Kneron team used high quality 3-D masks to deceive AliPay and WeChat payment systems in order to make purchases.

Kneron, which is led backed by high-profile investors including Qualcomm and Sequoia Capital, is creating what it calls "Edge AI," an artificial intelligence tool that does the job of recognizing individual entirely on devices rather than though cloud-based services.

Although Kneron was able to fool many facial recognition applications, Kneron admitted that its experiments could not fool some facial recognition applications, notably Apple's iPhone X. For more on this, read the Fortune report.