Sprinkling of reports say fingerprint biometrics failing on Pixel 6a

The only way that a recent report about the Pixel 6a could be more surprising would be if someone said their new phone refused to take photographs at concerts and parades.

9to5Google says it has come across accounts in which owners of Google’s new Pixel 6a allow any fingerprint to open their phone.

The trade publication is not making too much out of this; they have only found eight reports. It is eight out of tens of thousands of reports. Of course, new phones have more niggling problems than those that are a generation old and biometric systems can break. Or, saints preserve us, the Internet could be lying to us.

But this is like a flip phone that would not flip or an iPhone 15 years ago that would not perform the illusion that you were pouring a beer into your mouth.

Biometric scanning is table stakes, and it is the only way a lot of people know how to secure their phones. If this is the tip of a hardware iceberg, Google is headed for a tough quarter. But even if it is a software problem, company provisioners now supplying phones to employees will have to do (another) risk assessment.

Here is what is being reported by 9to5Google: At least two of the reports are from India, others are surfacing on Reddit.

The trade publication’s editors could not replicate the problem and “you either have it or don’t,” which means it does not happen after a fall.

If you hand your phone to a stranger and they are able to get in, immediately switch to PIN or password unlock.

The biometric sensor was changed by Google for the Pixel 6a, away from a Goodix sensor, 9to5Google previously reported, after reports of slow operation.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  consumer electronics  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  fingerprint recognition  |  Google  |  smartphones