[NSC] IPhone 10 - Facial Recognition

[FindonFan]

Can anybody help?
I’ve recently bought an iPhone 10 via eBay (I know). All is ok except when setting up I find that Facial Recognition has been disabled. As I bought the phone as a “guest” I cant log on to eBay to get much in the way of help.
So my question is are any of you technically minded folk out there able to tell a 79 year old non technical old fool how to overcome the disabled Facial Recognition problem on my iPhone.

 

[BNthree]

If you can't just turn the feature on from settings (Settings - Face ID and Passcode) then I'd factory reset the phone (Settings - General - scroll to bottom to find Reset) and start again.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

Make sure nothing is covering the front cameras like a screen protector etc.

Settings - Face ID & Passcode, Reset Face ID then try again.

My daughters XR suffered water damage and this stopped the facial recognition from working, even when I reset the face ID as soon as I went to set it up it would just disable again. To check for water damage see if the indicator is red, remove the sim card holder and there will be a red indicator at the back of the sim card gap if it's suffered exposure to water.

 

[Bozza]

I'd expect any phone to have been reset to factory defaults which means you'd be prompted to do FaceID as part of setting it up again.

As above, I'd do a factory reset regardless now, as you don't know what may still be lurking on there from the previous owner - you want to wipe it clean and start again.

Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone

 

[Bozza]

Make sure nothing is covering the front cameras like a screen protector etc.

Settings - Face ID & Passcode, Reset Face ID then try again.

My daughters XR suffered water damage and this stopped the facial recognition from working, even when I reset the face ID as soon as I went to set it up it would just disable again. To check for water damage see if the indicator is red, remove the sim card holder and there will be a red indicator at the back of the sim card gap if it's suffered exposure to water.

That's a tad unlucky - both the XR and the X have IP67 water resistance which, whilst not brilliant, do protect the sensitive stuff from most likely encounters with water.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

That's a tad unlucky - both the XR and the X have IP67 water resistance which, whilst not brilliant, do protect the sensitive stuff from most likely encounters with water.

It was a double whammy of her breaking one of the back camera lenses which led to the water ingress when she then later dropped it into a tub of water. She didn't tell me about the broken lense as I could have probably dealt with it on insurance before the water ingress. Teenagers and phones I've given the phone to her younger brother who isn't worried about non working camera's etc as it still works for everything else, including getting into the Amex.

 

[FindonFan]

BNthree, Joey and Bozza, many thanks for your input.

 

[Beanstalk]

It is quite a common quirk of the notchless iPhones that Face ID will be disabled when a third-party part is installed into the iPhone (normally the camera). It is highly unlikely that, without the original part, or without some quite expensive software manipulation that it will work. Whilst frustrating, it is still a really good phone, it'll just require a passcode.

It's a really annoying approach to third-party repair and makes Apple's commitment to sustainability laughable.