No one likes having someone else, especially a stranger, look over their shoulder when they’re using their phones or computers. This is particularly true if you’re working on something that might contain private or sensitive information that shouldn’t be seen by non-authorized personnel.
It looks like Apple could actually have a way to deal with this problem, at least that’s according to a report from PhoneArena which points towards a recently-discovered patent where Apple has come up with an idea for a display that can encrypt itself. This means that if it detects a non-authorized person looking at the display, its contents will scramble and become illegible.
How this works is that the device in question will rely on a camera sensor to determine the gaze of the user, as well as analyzing the environment around them. For example, if it detects that someone else that is not the user looking at the display, the part the person is looking at will be made indecipherable, while the part where the authorized user is looking at remains legible.
Apple already employs facial recognition to its iPhones and iPads, so it looks like the company does have some tech in place that could make this a reality. However, whether or not they will remains to be seen, but we wouldn’t be surprised given Apple’s long-standing boast about how they approach user privacy.
Filed in . Read more about iPhone, Patent, Privacy and Security. Source: phonearena