Currently, there is a demand within distance education of control mechanisms for verifying the identity of students when conducting activities within virtual classrooms. Biometric authentication is one of the tools to meet this demand and prevent fraud. In this line of research, the present work is aimed at analyzing the perceptions of a group of distance students on the impact on the teaching-learning process of a technology of biometric authentication called Smowl. To meet this objective the authors design a quasi-experimental study with two groups of 50 students, one using Smowl technology and the other not. The results show a comparison of the perceptions of both groups, finding that students who have used Smowl are more favorable towards the use of such tools, except in matters relating to the impact on academic performance and ethical aspects of its use, in which no significant differences were found.