Although I have my fingerprint configured on my smartphone and laptop, every time I restart them I get asked to enter my password. They won’t let me in with the fingerprint. It feels like they’re aiming for another security layer, but how is a password more secure than a fingerprint? What are they thinking? Someone stole my fingertip?
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When you set a password you enter a series of characters that is unique. The password system uses a special algorithm to process that password and it stores the result in the secure storage. You cannot access the secure storage, and even if you could you cannot reverse the answer to get the password. The more characters you use from different character sets the more unique passwords exist, billions or trillions of options.
When you’re asked for the password, the secure system uses the same algorithm to process the characters you enter, and it then compares this answer with the stored answer, and if the two match, congratulations, you’ve entered the right password.
The fingerprint and facial recognition systems are more “fuzzy”. The fingerprint stores some key points of your fingerprint, but unlike a string of characters it’s far from unique, it’s just sufficiently complex that it’s unlikely a false entry can be used. Hence when certain operations are undertaken like a restart it’s more secure to require the password instead of the fingerprint or face. Fingerprint and facial recognition on gadgets are a balance between convenience and security. They could be more strict at the risk of increased rejection. Passwords are either correct or incorrect.
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