How to check the Biometric Class of your phone's fingerprint or face unlock sensor
One of the biggest improvements in the Pixel 8 series versus the Pixel 7 series is the upgraded face unlock: It now works with banking apps and Google Pay!
This is because face unlock on the Pixel 8 is a Class 3 biometric, which means it can integrate with the BiometricPrompt API and Android Keystore system.
This is the first Android device (AFAIK) that offers Class 3 face unlock using just the front-facing camera. So how do you actually check the security classification of your phone's face unlock?
It's easy! All you need is to set up ADB and then run a single command:
Koodi:
adb shell dumpsys biometric
Android will output all recognized biometric sensors on the device, their strength, and modality.
Modality of 2 refers to a fingerprint scanner, while modality of 8 refers to a face scanner. Strength of 15 is Class 3, strength of 255 is Class 2, and strength of 4095 is Class 1. (The biometric strengths are defined here while the modalities are defined here.)
For example, attached to this post is the output from a Pixel 7 Pro versus a Pixel 8 Pro. The Pixel 7 Pro has an optical under-display fingerprint scanner that's a Class 3 biometric as well as a face unlock scanner that's a Class 1 biometric. The Pixel 8 series also has an optical under-display fingerprint scanner that's a Class 3 biometric but it also has a Class 3 face unlock.