Allowing access to Windows Hello

Wilco69

Hi, I wondered whether anyone has worked out how to allow Windows Hello to access the webcam to allow log in using facial recognition? It looks like BitDefender blocks it and I can’t find how to add it as an exception. Thanks

Alexandru_BD

Hello @Wilco69 and welcome to the Community!

The situation you have encountered might be attributed to the Bitdefender Webcam protection feature. When it comes to preventing hackers from taking control of your webcam, solutions such as revoking application’s privileges, disabling the device’s built-in camera, or covering it up are not very practical. This is where Bitdefender Video & Audio Protection comes in. To prevent extortion attempts using sensitive data, the Webcam Protection feature permanently monitors apps that try to access your camera and blocks unknown applications.

Safe and trusted applications are automatically allowed access to the device webcam. An application is considered safe by Bitdefender and allowed by default to access your camera if it has a certain market spread and the majority of users have chosen to allow it.

The behavior is the same regardless of whether or not your computer has an integrated camera. By default, the “Set application permissions based on community choice” option is enabled, which means that when an application tries to access your camera Bitdefender searches the Cloud for a similar application based on a hash, and if found then the Allow/Block rule selected by most users is applied.

As a safety measure, you will receive a notification each time an untrusted app attempts to gain access to your camera, and you will be able to block it or allow it.

To deactivate Webcam Protection, follow these steps:

1. Click Privacy, on the left side of the main Bitdefender interface.
2. In the Video & Audio Protection pane, click on Settings.
3. Access the Settings tab.
4. Use the ON/OFF switch to enable/disable Webcam Protection.

Let us know if Windows Hello can be accessed afterwards.

Should you wish to keep webcam protection enabled at all times, using the settings menu you can also specify which apps should be allowed to access your webcam.

Regards

Wilco69

Thanks but that doesn’t fix the issue.

Alexandru_BD

Hi,

Try to add the .exe as an exception for the Advanced Threat Defense module and see if this helps. Follow the steps from this article:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/2393/

Let us know the result.

Cheers

Spodenki

I have the same issue, however I can't find the process (.exe) file that needs to put added to the exceptions list as I don't know what process activates it. Hello is a standard feature of Windows 11 with enhanced security, I don't understand why Bitdefender does not recognize this as a normal function.

Alexandru_BD

Hello @Spodenki,

As this behaviour doesn't seem to be caused by the webcam protection and the .exe of the process cannot be added as exclusion for the ATD, my recommendation would be to get in touch with or engineers, for a more in-depth investigation, because more information might be required for an efficient diagnosis.

You can get in touch with our engineers by choosing one of the contact methods available here:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/help/

Let us know how it goes and please share your findings with the community, so we can help other users that may encounter this issue in the future.

Regards

Scott

https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/comment/314434#Comment_314434

This did end up in working for me on a newer notebook, and a clean install today of Total Security.

But...what I realized is there was an application being blocked, Host Process for Windows Services, and that if I ticked it to unblock it, I could have Webcam Protection ON (with block all access to webcam, set to off) and have Windows Hello log me in properly. If anyone is having a problem, check to see if BD does have that Host process blocked.