Microsoft's new
Surface Book hybrid laptop and
Surface Pro 4 productivity-oriented tablet both include hardware for biometric authentication using facial recognition. Yet when I reviewed them, I couldn't test out the feature because we didn't have a complete final driver stack.
Since then, we've been given final software loadouts and Windows Hello has sprung into life. Whether using facial, fingerprint, or iris recognition, the Hello process is broadly the same: first PIN login must be enabled and then you register your biometric data. In common with other biometric systems such as Apple's TouchID, the biometrics data never leaves the machine and is securely stored in such a way that it shouldn't be possible for malicious applications to capture or exfiltrate the data. Registration for the facial recognition is easy peasy: the camera looks at you for a few seconds, and you're done.
With Hello enabled, logging in to the machine is as simple as sitting down in front of it. The lock screen shows the Windows Hello "eye" looking around, and the detection is near-instantaneous. It takes longer for Windows to dismiss the lock screen and show the desktop than it does for it to recognize you in the first place. In fact, it's so quick that a kind of delay had to be built in. If there were no delay, locking your PC with Windows+L (or the Start menu option) would be nigh impossible. As soon as you locked the PC, it'd recognize your face and unlock. If Hello recognizes your face
immediately it asks you to swipe the lock screen out of the way to complete the sign in, but this only happens when it sees you as soon as you've unlocked the PC. If a few seconds have passed, no additional step is required.
