The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 50 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover Apple's granted patent for taking Face ID to the next level by adding face vein matching that adds a level of sophistication to the biometric authentication process.

Apple notes in their granted patent that when it comes to authentication using facial recognition, there are potential cases where a user attempting to be authenticated (authorized) by a device cannot be distinguished from another user with closely related facial features. For example, it may be difficult for a facial recognition authentication process to distinguish between siblings, twins, and other closely related faces. When the authentication process cannot distinguish between closely related faces, additional authentication processes may be used to reduce or prevent increases in a false acceptance rate.

Apple acknowledged this flaw in an Evil-Twin slide during a keynote as shown below.

Apple's granted patent 10,719,692 covers Face ID with Subepidermal Imaging and Machine Learning that will be able to distinguish faces even between twins.  

In certain embodiments, the captured subepidermal image includes an image of one or more blood vessels (e.g., veins) in the user's face. Apple's patent FIG. 9 below depicts a representation of an embodiment of an image of subepidermal features in a user's face.

As shown in FIG. 9 above, the face includes a plurality of blood vessels (#402 e.g., veins). Unlike some other facial features on the surface of the skin of a user's face, veins in the subepidermal layers of the face are typically unique to an individual and vein patterns are different between different individuals, even siblings or twins.

Apple's patent FIG. 8 below depicts a flowchart of an embodiment of additional authentication process #300. Additionally, the authentication process may be, for example, a vein matching authentication process used to distinguish between an unauthorized user and an authorized user that have closely related (e.g., very similar) facial features to prevent the unauthorized user from accessing device 100 without authorization.