This month the iPhone changed in some big ways. Probably the most obvious is the missing “Home” button. That’s right: Apple’s newest flagship smartphone, the iPhone X, has no fingerprint scanner. It’s been replaced by something called Face ID.

Those who watched Apple’s presentation will already be somewhat familiar with Face ID, but we’ll shed some light on this technology, and then turn to the area that’s always on our minds: security. In brief, Apple’s Face ID is a technology used to recognize a user’s face and unlock the new iPhone as well as confirm payments by comparing its view of their face with a picture stored in the iPhone’s memory. 

The new top-of-the-range iPhone does away with the home button and its built-in fingerprint reader in favor of a new biometric — called Face ID — which uses a 3D scan of the user’s face for authenticating and unlocking their device. It also replaces Touch ID for Apple Pay too.

Apple suggests this is an advancement over a fingerprint reader because it’s an easier and more natural action for the user to perform — you just look at the phone and it unlocks; no need to worry if you have wet fingers and so on. However offering to gate the smorgasbord of personal content that lives on a smartphone behind a face biometric inevitably raises lots of security questions.