Imagine this scenario: you’re chilling at a bar, and you enter your passcode on your iPhone.  You use an app, then lock it and set it on the bar.  Then you’re distracted for a moment and when you look back at the bar top, your phone is gone.

And now a thief has your phone, and worse, he shoulder-surfed your passcode (or a confederate did).  While you frantically look around for your phone, he’s taking over your life.

This is a nightmare scenario, because the thief can likely run roughshod over your digital world.  Access to your cloud storage is only a password reset away and the thief has access to your email, your authenticators, and your password vault.  Your banking apps, shopping accounts, social media, etc. are all wide open.

The four or six digits that unlock your phone is a huge vulnerability.  You may have a 32-character password with all kinds of special characters on your email, but you don’t enter it when you tap the mail icon on your phone.

Even worse, using FaceID or Fingerprint Unlock is not enough, because there’s still that passcode.  If I steal your phone, I don’t have your face, but if I know your passcode, I don’t needit.

Add the Second Layer

On iPhone, you can hard-press on any application icon and select Require FaceID.

This means that even if your phone is unlocked, it’ll require FaceID (and only FaceID, not a passcode) to launch that app.  You can enable it for any app you wish.

This adds a second layer of protection.  Now if I’ve seen your passcode and stolen your phone, there’s a hard limit on what I can do because I can’t open any of your critical apps.

Which apps should you add biometric protections to?  These are good candidates:

• Banking apps
• Authenticators
• Password vaults
• Any browser you regularly use
• Your email
• Social media apps
• Cloud storage apps
• Shopping apps

Android does not have an universal “require face unlock” option.  On Samsung, you can go to Settings -> Security and Privacy -> Secure Folder and put apps inside, which requires a fingerprint or face to unlock.  Pixel has Private Spaces that are similar.