A Chinese man has been jailed for three and a half years for lifting his girlfriend’s eyelids as she slept and stealing nearly £18,000 from her bank accounts by using her phone’s facial recognition software to unlock apps.
He used his fingerprints to unlock his Huawei phone by the 28-year-old boyfriend.
He then gained access to his girlfriend’s Alipay mobile payment platform by lifting up her eyelids so that her phone would recognise her face and unlock the app at a home in the southern city of Nanning, according to court documents seen by The Times.
Huang later changed the woman’s password for Alipay and transferred more than 150,000 yuan (£180,000) from her bank accounts.
A Chinese man has been jailed for three and a half years for lifting his girlfriend’s eyelids as she slept and stealing nearly £18,000 from her bank accounts by using her phone’s facial recognition software to unlock apps (file image)
Huang had prepared a meal for the victim last December, and she had already met her in person. According to state newspaper Nanning Evening News, Huang put in soluble cold medication into the food. This made Dong feel sleepy.
Huang devised the elaborate plot after having accumulated extensive debts in gabling and spent the money on his gambling.
Dong began to worry about Huang’s financial transactions after being alerted by bank transfer alerts the next morning.
His 28-year old boyfriend (named Huang) waited for his girlfriend to fall asleep before unlocking her Huawei phone with her fingerprints.
Huang was arrested in April and later found guilty of theft by using secret methods to steal someone else’s property, with a judge sentencing him to three and a half years in prison and handing him a 20,000 yuan (£2,400) fine.
Alipay, an online and third-party Chinese payment platform has stated that the facial recognition feature of the app does not function if the face of the individual is blank.
However, the company advised customers that they should add additional layers to their protection and notify police if there is any suspicious activity.