Fingerprint

Hello Arlsam,

Thank you for posting in the Apple Support Communities. I see you might be running into an issue using Touch ID on an iPad.

Can you provide more information about what happens when you say Touch ID stops working? If you get an error message, what does it say?

I recommend troubleshooting this using the steps published in this article, if you haven't completed all of these: If Touch ID isn't working on your iPhone or iPad. If you've already completed these steps, or if you find the issue persists after working through them, you'll want to get back in touch with Apple for further assistance: Contact Apple Support.

I hope this helps you.

Take care.

Hi Arlsam,

Thanks! We appreciate the follow-up information. It sounds like you might have already already visited the Apple Store and covered all of the troubleshooting in this link: If Touch ID isn't working on your iPhone or iPad. If that's correct, I recommend contacting Apple for your next steps: Contact Apple Support.

Cheers.

Whilst your fingerprints don’t fundamentally change throughout your lifetime, their readability can be effected by physical and environmental conditions. If you suffer from dry skin, frequently and/or aggressively wash your hands, use moisturising or barrier creams, or handle abrasive materials - these can all affect the readability of your fingerprint.

In essence, the optical fingerprint sensor works by “seeing” the fingerprint ridge-detail when placed on the sensor glass - then reduces this to a set of physical coordinates that are securely stored as a pattern in the secure enclave.

If sufficient data points are not matched, when comparing your subsequently scanned fingerprint with that stored in the secure-enclave chip, your fingerprint will be rejected. Whilst the system is designed to have reasonable resilience against minor changes in the scan (remember, your actual fingerprint isn’t stored - only a dataset representing it), if a reasonable match cannot be confirmed, then it must assume “you’re not you” and reject.

Some people, perhaps due to their occupation, find that fingerprint scanners can be unreliable. Speaking personally, I too experience this problem during winter months when humidity is low (due to dry skin), but generally do not have any issues during the warmer months. The second-generation Apple readers, for me, generally work better than first-gen’ readers that are used on some Apple products.

Fingerprint readers are always have to balance read-reliability against security (“false accept” versus “false reject” rates) and cost. Such readers could be made hyper reliable, but not at a financial cost that would be acceptable in a consumer product.

If you suffer from the problem of failed fingerprint recognition, there really isn’t much you can do except to identify (for you) the likely cause - be that skin condition, physical damage or environmental - and try to mitigate the cause. For example, you may choose to consciously choose a finger for fingerprint recognition that you don’t tend to actively use if physical activities might cause abrasion to the skin. For example, a “woodworker” might use abrasive paper - or an engineer might use harsh chemicals that can dry-out the skin.

The symptoms you describe closely mirror the performance limitiations that I too experience on a seasonal basis. I hope this helps to aid your understanding of why you might be seeing some issues.