faceprint

A faceprint is a digital scan or photograph of a human face, used for identifying individuals from the unique characteristics of facial structure. Similar to a fingerprint, a faceprint is produced when facial recognition technology scans faces and measures distinguishing facial features such as eye position, eyebrow shape, and nostril angle.

The resulting "digital faceprint" is then entered into a database to check for a match. For example, "Hidden cameras and faceprints are used to single out individuals in a crowd."

Historical perspective: Apple was under fire from privacy experts in late 2017 for agreeing to share iPhone X users’ faceprints with app developers, according to Reuters.com. The new iPhone X’s Face ID feature allows the device to be unlocked through facial recognition, and a handful of apps (such as Animoji, which lets users animate emoji characters with their own facial expressions) also rely on the feature. Apple has told app developers that they can take certain facial data off the phone to build new apps as long as they agree to seek customer permission and not sell the data to third parties. But privacy experts say it is alarming that developers can store the data, including information on how often users blink, smile, or even raise an eyebrow, on their own servers, where it could be hacked and then misused.