Today, Swedish fingerprint sensor manufacturer Fingerprint Cards AB (FPC) and disruptive authentication technology company Nok Nok Labs announced an end-to-end, fingerprint biometrics based mobile authentication infrastructure. The new solution is in direct support of the FIDO Alliance’s push for universal strong authentication standards, and marks the first result of Fingerprint Cards’ efforts in supporting the FIDO protocol.
“This solution is the first result of our collaborative efforts to support the FIDO Alliance and is intended to help the alliance achieve its mission to transform the nature of online authentication, and to enable our customers to be part of its ecosystem,” says Jӧrgen Lantto, FPC’s EVP, CTO and head of strategy and product management.
The solution combines FPC1020 swipe sensor which has been optimized for Windows and Android and Nok Nok Labs’ Multifactor Authentication Server: a modular technology meant specifically to allow for the disruption for old password based ideas of security when leveraged with authentication factors like those measured by Fingerprint Cards sensors.
Nok Nok Labs president and CEO Phillip Dunkelberger, who is among the founding members of FIDO expands on what the solution has to offer:”Nok Nok Labs’ Multifactor Authentication Server allows any company to rapidly integrate smartphones and tablets using FPC’s fingerprint sensors into their online authentication experience and minimize their reliance on weak passwords. Companies can now use fingerprint-based authentication as an ‘ignition key’ to create new classes of innovative and unique mobile experiences. Services such as mobile payments and user personalization can be implemented in ways that are more natural, faster and secure than before.”
This specific collaborative effort taken by alliance members sheds some light on comments that FIDO president Michael Barrett made in October, giving the world an ETA for fingerprint sensors on Android devices (early 2014). The rapid growth of FIDO, when combined with these dedicated initiatives certainly seems to be putting them on the right track.
Next Monday, December 2, Dunkelberger and Barrett will both be discussing the larger implications of this kind of post-password paradigm being forwarded by the Alliance and its efforts in a 40 minute webinar titled “The Password is Dead!” As the year quickly comes to a close and with the promise of end-to-end solutions offering low-friction strong authentication for mobile devices on the slate for 2014, it is likely that this will shed some welcome insight on what the future of mobile ID holds.
Follow Us