Face ID on MacBooks may be moving closer

The iPhone has it, the iPad has it, but until now Apple has held off bringing its Face ID security technology to its popular MacBook laptops.

That’s despite the company actually adding a display notch similar to the iPhone to its more recent Apple Silicon-powered MacBook laptops.

However, it does seem like Apple is working on the technology with a recent patent filing pertaining to a “Light Recognition Module for Determining a User of a Computing Device.”

The module explained within the United States Patent Office filing, spotted by Apple Insider, naturally refers to a camera within that notch, which is shown in supported diagrams.

“By performing these complex functions, sensitive data associated with these users may be gathered and/or stored by these computing devices,” Apple says in the patent.

“To prevent unauthorised users from accessing this sensitive data, these computing devices may incorporate systems and mechanisms for authenticating users.”

As these patents tend to, the filing goes into the minutiae of the technical detail over how this would work. Essentially, it essentially explains the way Face ID operates on existing Apple devices.

Apple explains “the light pattern recognition module includes a light emitter that is capable of projecting a predetermined pattern of light (e.g., infrared light) and a light detector that is capable of detecting a pattern of light caused by reflection of the predetermined pattern of light from an object (e.g., a user).”

This isn’t the first Apple patent published on the matter. Patents began to emerge in 2020 and there was another as recently as June 2023. This particular filing appears to be an update of that original 2020 filing.

However, it doesn’t seem the company is about to going to incorporate the tech any time soon. We’ve heard nothing suggesting the forthcoming M3 models would include Face ID to supplement the current Touch ID option within the keyboard’s power button.