Log Into Your Toshiba Laptop -- With Your Face

By Mark Hachman
4/29/2008 2:12:00 PM

Toshiba said Tuesday that the company has added an application to several notebook PCs that will "recognize" users via the installed Webcam.

The Toshiba Face Recognition software will allow users to log on to four newly designed notebooks, the Satellite U400, M300, A300 and Satellite P300.

Alternative forms of authentication have become increasingly common, as manufacturers and industry organizations attempt to go beyond just the common username/password combination. In the corporate and financial space, tools like fingerprint readers and security tokens add an additional layer of security, although early versions of fingerprint readers could be easily fooled. More complicated forms of biometrics, such as iris and retinal scanners, are more commonly used by government agencies and security systems at airports.

Toshiba describes the new face-recognition software as a "fun and convenient" way to log in to the PC, however, and a company spokesman said the new software is more of a gimmick than a security precaution.

"Toshiba isn't claiming that it's a genuine security feature; they'd rather describe it as more of a convenient alternative to entering a username and password," a company spokesman said. "Right now it's more of a novelty feature than a security measure."

During setup, the user is asked to move his or her face slightly several times, so that a collection of images can be used as a database when identifying a user. Users can also periodically update the database to "inform" the PC when a user has grown a beard, for example.