Since August 2022, the consumer firm has tested 48 new smartphones of which 19 (40 per cent) can be easily spoofed with a photo to get past the phone’s lock screen and gain access to the data on the device.
The testers said that photos of the user, whose real-life image was registered with the device, were not even particularly high-resolution and were printed on a standard office printer on normal, rather than photo, paper.
The flaw could be exploited by criminals to unlock the screen and steal personal information, the research concluded.
The majority of the phones that failed the test were at the cheaper to mid-range end of the market, with prices from £89.99 for the Motorola Moto E13.
Prices go up to much more expensive handsets, too, such as the Motorola Razr 2022, which launched with a pricetag of almost £1,000 (£949.99).
Other high-end devices, such as Apple's iPhone and Honor’s recently-released Magic5 Pro, use a laser to create a 3D map of...