Ovi Store offering FaceLock app; use your face to unlock a Symbian 3 handset

First appearing at Nokia World 2010, the FaceLock app is now available for use on Nokia phones running Symbian 3. With the app, you take a picture of yourself using the front-facing camera on your phone. From that point forward, whenever you want to unlock your phone you simply use the front-facing camera to grab an image of yourself. The app compares the image with the stored photo and once it deems that the two match, your phone is unlocked. When the app was first announced, front-facing cameras were rare, so the technology required using a mirror and the camera on the rear of the phone (see image below)

Right now, the app is available as a free download from the Ovi Store. If for some reason the software won't accept the fact that you are indeed you, the phone will not stay locked forever. During the creation of your FaceLock account, you are prompted for a password that will be your ticket back to the device if the FaceLock technology gets a little "buggy". According to the Nokia Blog, while the app is designed for Symbian 3 devices, it will probably work on both the Anna and Belle versions of Symbian as well. FaceLock won the Nokia Innovators Hackathon at last year's Nokia World and we have found a video showing the app being used during a demonstration.

Recently, when we told you about a leaked list of apps expected on the Verizon variant of the Google Nexus Prime, the list included a FaceLock.apk which certainly sounds like the same face recognition technology. So if you plan on purchasing the Google Nexus Prime, you might want to start that new beard you've been thinking about growing so that it will be complete by the time the phone is launched and you need to take your picture for FaceLock.

source: NokiaHDBlog (translated) via Engadget, YouTube