Ontario based smartphone company BlackBerry (formerly Research in Motion) announced recently that it has become a member of the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) Alliance, in turn committing to collaboration on strong online authentication standards and technology.
“BlackBerry is deeply committed to remaining the Gold Standard in mobile security while providing a model for others to adopt and follow,” said Brian McBride, technical director for identity at BlackBerry, which, as one of the early pioneers of smartphone technology, has always held high security standards as a priority, with both hardware and software designed with data protection in mind.
Though it has struggled in recent years against Android and iOS competitors, BlackBerry is still a name that is largely associated with BYOD – an area in dire need of high security standards. Now, having been appointed to the FIDO board of directors, it will be lending its longstanding expertise in tamper resistant solutions to one of the most dynamic and important conversations in mobile ID.
The FIDO Alliance, which was formed in 2012 as a response to the lack of interoperability between forms of strong authentication, is a rapidly growing consortium committed to deliver the FIDO protocol: an open platform that supports not only biometric authentication solutions of all walks (fingerprint, iris, facial etc.) but also one-time password tokens and near field communications solutions, among others.
FIDO Alliance president and former PayPal CISO Michael Barrett welcomed BlackBerry with warm sentiments: “BlackBerry’s addition to the FIDO Alliance moves the mobile industry closer to universal strong authentication using the open FIDO specifications that embrace all use cases. We also prize BlackBerry among the Internet’s leading relying parties, with the potential to allow millions of users to utilize open strong authentication.”
Barrett, who has been very vocal about the failure of conventional password security, will be a key speaker at Biometrics UnPlugged: Mobility Rules conference being held on September 16 in Tampa, Florida. Mobile ID World will be there with live coverage from the ground floor. Be sure to follow @MobileIDWorld on Twitter for up-to the minute reporting.
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