Android 15 can automatically delete your face or fingerprint unlock if they aren’t working well

Most Android phones, even really cheap budget phones, sport some kind of biometric authentication method, whether that be through a fingerprint scanner or facial recognition. However, the accuracy of these sensors can vary drastically between devices due to differences in the sensor technology, the exact part that’s used, the specific tuning done by the vendor, and even the environmental conditions of the user. Internet forums are littered with users complaining about their phones’ biometrics, and one of the most common recommendations to fix biometric authentication issues is to re-enroll their fingerprint or face. The upcoming Android 15 release might proactively help users re-enroll their poorly performing biometrics.

While digging through the latest Android 15 beta, I discovered new strings in the OS framework that suggest that Android will automatically detect when your face or fingerprint models aren’t working well, delete them, and then prompt you to set them up again. Android 15 will show a notification saying that your face or fingerprint model “wasn’t working well and was deleted. Set it up again to unlock your phone” with your face or fingerprint. Since Android only lets you enroll a single face, the notification that’s shown for re-enrolling your face will be slightly different than the one shown for re-enrolling your fingerprint, but there’s no functional difference. Here are the strings in question: