I don't use biometrics at all, on any devices. So why, then, am I seeing "biometrickitd" actively running in my Activity Monitor? Should I stop this process?
For reference I'm on a MacBook Pro running Catalina 10.15.7
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15
A lot of system processes run all of the time, whether they have work to do or not. Typically, they would sleep, waiting for macOS to wake them up when another piece of code signals that there is work to be done.
On my Mac, running Sequoia, there is a biometrickitd process that is using 0.00% of the CPU. This is an Apple Silicon Mac desktop that would be compatible with an Apple Magic Keyboard with a Touch ID sensor. The man page confirms the nature of the process, although it does not provide much more in the way of detail.
biometrickitd(8) System Manager's Manual biometrickitd(8)
NAME
biometrickitd – biometric daemon
DESCRIPTION
biometrickitd provides support for biometric operations. It is not meant
to be invoked directly.
Darwin 23/11/15 Darwin
Your MacBook Pro running Catalina would be Intel-based. I believe that many Intel-based MacBook Pros which Apple released in 2016 or later had built-in Touch ID sensors – and a search of Apple Developer documentation suggests that there was biometric support in macOS at least as far back as early versions of High Sierra.
I would suggest leaving the process alone.
A lot of system processes run all of the time, whether they have work to do or not. Typically, they would sleep, waiting for macOS to wake them up when another piece of code signals that there is work to be done.
On my Mac, running Sequoia, there is a biometrickitd process that is using 0.00% of the CPU. This is an Apple Silicon Mac desktop that would be compatible with an Apple Magic Keyboard with a Touch ID sensor. The man page confirms the nature of the process, although it does not provide much more in the way of detail.
biometrickitd(8) System Manager's Manual biometrickitd(8)
NAME
biometrickitd – biometric daemon
DESCRIPTION
biometrickitd provides support for biometric operations. It is not meant
to be invoked directly.
Darwin 23/11/15 Darwin
Your MacBook Pro running Catalina would be Intel-based. I believe that many Intel-based MacBook Pros which Apple released in 2016 or later had built-in Touch ID sensors – and a search of Apple Developer documentation suggests that there was biometric support in macOS at least as far back as early versions of High Sierra.
I would suggest leaving the process alone.
karl_havoc wrote:
I don't use biometrics at all, on any devices. So why, then, am I seeing "biometrickitd" actively running in my Activity Monitor? Should I stop this process?
For reference I'm on a MacBook Pro running Catalina 10.15.7
A SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support will sort many anomalies
Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled temporarily.
Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.
Perhaps your MacBook Pro is one of those with a Touch ID sensor on the power button.
My Mac is showing 0 packets sent and 0 packets received for this background process – but then again, I have an one of the Magic Keyboards that does not have a Touch ID sensor.
I get why it's there, but I don't understand why it's so active when I'm not utilizing biometrics...
Currently my activity monitor says that it's sending/receiving 67kb/69kb, sent packets = 112, received packets = 101. Why is this happening? I don't want my fingerprints scanned, ever :(
Why is process: biometrickitd running in my activity monitor when I don't use biometrics?
