In summary: - PCWorld tested Windows Hello facial recognition security by attempting to fool the system with photos, finding it effectively resisted all spoofing attempts including high-resolution iPad images and printed photos with eye holes. - Windows Hello uses IR cameras and 3D depth mapping technology to distinguish real faces from flat images, storing facial landmark data locally rather than actual photos for enhanced privacy and security. - The system proves significantly more secure than older facial recognition methods and traditional PINs or passwords, requiring sophisticated 3D facial replicas to potentially bypass its advanced biometric protection. Long ago, I had an Android phone with an early facial recognition sign-in feature… and someone could unlock my phone just by holding up a photo of me. Yeah, it was bad. Fast forward to 2025 and we have Windows Hello facial recognition sign-ins for PCs. Microsoft talks a big game about how secure it is, that Windows Hello can’t be easily tricked, that it’s better than a traditional PIN or password, and that it’s as secure as Apple’s Face ID. But is it really? I ran an experiment and tried to fool it. Here’s what happened when I put facial recognition to the test on my PC. How I tried to fool Windows Hello If someone wanted to fool facial recognition biometrics, they’d probably do it using a photo of your face. So that’s just what I did—I took a photo of myself (available online), put it on an iPad, and held it up in front of my face. My Windows Hello webcam wasn’t fooled for a second. In fact, Windows Hello doesn’t even see flat pictures as faces! While the Camera app on Windows does register it as a face, Windows Hello knows better. Despite holding up a high-resolution image of my