Opening your phone with your fingerprint or facial recognition is cool and convenient.

Thankfully iOS and Android let you temporarily turn off fingerprint or face recognition with several different methods.

Why would it’s crucial that you quickly lock up your phone?

OpenSettings > Security & location > Lock screen preferences.

Toggle onShow lockdown option.

Then any time you want to activate lockdown,hold down your power button and tap Enter lockdown.

Then whenever it’s crucial that you lock up your phone, tap the shortcut.

(On iPhones 5S to 7, hit the power button five times.)

Whatever you select, even Cancel, your phone will ask for your passcode to unlock.

Once you unlock your phone, Touch ID will be enabled again.

So you have to repeat this step every time you lock your phone.

Those lock screen options are pretty cool: Medical ID shows whatever emergency contact info youve stored.

Emergency SOS immediately calls 911.

If you cancel that, it counts down ten seconds before calling your emergency contacts.

If you cancel that, it finally calms down.

But your phone will still require your passcode to unlock.

to your locked phone will disable Touch/Face ID.

Like the button-press method, this only lasts until youve unlocked your phone once.

Weirdly, this doesnt work if you activate Siri by holding down the Home button.

When we tested it, the voice command sometimes failed unless we tapped our own contact info.

This feature is apparently too clever for its own good.

Next time you lock your phone, youll need to type your passcode to get back in.

(Your phone still remembers your face or fingerprint, so you wont have to teach it again.)

Reboot

you’re able to always turn off your phone.

Whenever you turn it back on, it will require your passcode to unlock.

(On Android you might also use a swipe pattern, butmake sure its hard to guess.)

Of course, that makes your phone pretty useless in the interim.

Lastly, go through your parameters to see whats available on your lock screen.

If your calendar, text alerts, or other lock screen widgets contain sensitive information, disable them.

No point locking up your phone if a new text can undo all that hard work.