A person’s wife unlocked his Pixel 6 with her unregistered fingerprints
This news comes to us from a Reddit user who owns a Pixel 6 base model. In a video he posted, he shows his phone with only one fingerprint registered. He unlocked his phone on camera and then gave it over to his wife. His wife was then able to unlock the phone with her unregistered fingerprints. Suffice to say, this will cause a lot of Pixel 6 owners to be worried. The ability for a stranger to potentially unlock your phone is something we all fear as smartphone owners.
It doesn’t stop at that user
Just scrolling through the Reddit comments, we see other people talking about their experiences with this issue. Just scrubbing through the comments here, there were at least four other Pixel 6 owners who are having trouble with unregistered fingerprints. Google hasn’t responded to this issue even though the Reddit post is five days old at this point. There probably isn’t much that the company can do at this point, as this may be a hardware issue. If there is some sort of software trickery that it can use, it will need to send the update before someone has their data stolen.
Some people are blaming screen protectors for the issue
Some users theorize that screen protectors allow the Pixel 6 to read unregistered fingerprints. The thought behind it is that when a person applies a screen protector, their fingerprint can be left on the underside. When a person puts their finger down and activates the reader, it picks up the fingerprint on the screen protector, not the actual finger. This seems feasible, but not likely. A person would need to place their fingerprint in the perfect location. Plus, when registering a fingerprint, you need to move your finger around, and that can’t happen with a stationary mark.
This could be a major issue for Google
The Pixel 6 marks a lot of firsts for Google. It’s the first phone with Google’s own SoC, the first phone with a new camera sensor in years, and it’s the first phone with an under-display fingerprint scanner. Because of this, there are bound to be some hiccups. Regardless, a security issue like this could really cause some damage to the Pixel 6 name. If Google can’t find some sort of solution to this problem, it will impact sales of what’s been a positively received phone.
