Your Windows PC could soon lock itself when you step away from it

11 months ago

Your Windows 10 PC might soon have the ability to know when you’ve stepped away from it and automatically lock itself when you do.

The Windows Central blog is suggesting that a feature called Dynamic Lock, which appears in the list of features for recent test builds of Windows 10, does just that and is being tested by Microsoft ahead of a possible release to the public.

According to the report, Microsoft refers to the feature internally as “Windows Goodbye”, a reference to the existing Windows Hello feature which uses cameras to unlock a PC by facial recognition.

It’s not known if the Dynamic Lock could use the same technology in reverse – sensing when a user moves away from the screen and locking it – or be set up to detect when the machine is idle and then lock it accordingly.

Such a feature does already exists in Windows, with PCs locking themselves after a set time period; however, it appears Microsoft is looking to make it more contextual and basing it on user movements.

It has also been suggested that the Lock feature could appear as part of the Creators Update – the next big public update to Windows 10, which is due to arrive in April.