How to discreetly disable Face ID or Touch ID on your iPhone or iPad

Find out how to disable Face ID or Touch ID on your iPhone or iPad in case someone tries to force you to unlock your device against your will.

Face ID blocked on iPhone

The advent of Face ID and Touch ID has ushered in a new era of convenience in biometric security. It has also prompted privacy-minded folks to contemplate potential scenarios where police officers may attempt to unlock a confiscated iPhone or iPad by holding the device up to the owner’s face or pressing the thumb on the button.

Thankfully, Touch ID and Face ID can be disabled quickly and discreetly at any time, even when the phone is in your pocket, with a quick and useful shortcut. When disabled that way, these biometric unlocking methods stay off until you type in your passcode.

Related: 12 tips to secure your iPhone Lock Screen notifications for increased privacy

How to temporarily disable Face ID or Touch ID

1) Go to the power off screen.

  • On iPhone with Face ID: Press and hold the right side button and one of the volume buttons.
  • On iPhone with the Home button: Press and hold the right side button.
  • On iPad without Home button: Press the top button and one of the volume buttons.
  • On iPad with Home button: Press and hold the top button.

2) After a second or so, up pops the “slide to power off” screen with a pair of quick options for powering down the device, accessing Medical ID, and initiating a call to your local emergency services.

3) As soon as you summon this screen, iOS temporarily disables the Face ID or Touch ID feature. You can press the side button once again to exit this screen. Alternatively, you can tap Cancel from the screen or call emergency contacts and services.

Disabling Face ID on iPhone

Note that your face/fingerprint remains registered, and the Face ID/Touch ID option is still turned on in Settings, but you can no longer unlock the phone with your face/finger until your passcode is entered on the Lock Screen.

Tip: To prevent the “slide to power off” screen from starting a countdown timer and playing a loud alert sound that indicates that an emergency call is about to be placed automatically, disable the option labeled Call with Hold and Release or Auto-Call in iOS Settings > Emergency SOS.

Can Siri temporarily disable Face ID?

I found that Siri cannot disable Face ID on my iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 17 and iPad Pro running iPadOS 17.

However, on older versions of iOS (or earlier versions of Siri), if your iPhone is nearby yet is not directly in your possession, you can still disable Face ID temporarily and require a passcode just by using Siri. To do so, simply say, “Hey Siri, whose phone is this?” Siri will show your contact card if there is one linked to you. After that, Face ID will be disabled, and it will require a passcode to unlock the device.

Temporarily disabling Face ID before nap time is the best way to make sure that no one can unlock your phone by scanning your face while you’re asleep, which is why you should never disable Face ID’s Attention Awareness capability.

But what about the police?

Legal gray area

In the United States, law enforcement agencies cannot legally compel you to give them your passcode or type it in yourself. That’s why you should memorize this helpful shortcut.

You never know if you’ll find yourself in an unfortunate position where a thief or a police officer may coerce you into unlocking the phone with Face ID or Touch ID. As an extra layer of protection, you’ll find this shortcut especially useful at the border control to prevent warrantless searches.

Such situations are always stressful, and you may not even have the chance to hold those buttons while pulling the phone out of your pocket. In that case, be sure to look away while handing your iPhone over to an officer to avoid unlocking it accidentally with a glance.

Holding iPhone with Face ID in hand

Could police officers force someone they’ve arrested to look into their iPhone to unlock it?

This is a bit of a murky legal area.

We know that the Fifth Amendment protects US citizens from having to give up information that could incriminate them, like a password or PIN code. Your facial scan (or thumbprint in the case of Touch ID), however, isn’t something you “know” the way your passcode is.

The US government currently does not leverage search warrants to compel criminals to unlock phones secured with biometric authentication but don’t count on it. The legal uncertainty surrounding biometric authentication on smartphones is one of the most compelling reasons to memorize this handy gesture, just in case.

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