The FIDO Alliance has announced that the entire Android platform has received FIDO2 Certification. The move immediately brings more than 1 billion Android devices under the FIDO2 umbrella, providing a massive boost to FIDO’s ongoing efforts to move beyond passwords and drive the transition to a biometric authentication standard.
The development will simplify access management for millions of consumers. Anyone with a compatible mobile device can now use a FIDO security key or a fingerprint scan to access any website or app that complies with FIDO2 security standards. Existing Android devices can upgrade to FIDO2 certification with a simple Google Play update for Android 7.0+. New devices that run Android 7.0+ will be FIDO2 compliant as soon as they hit store shelves.
“FIDO2 was designed to be implemented by platforms, with the ultimate goal of ubiquity across all the web browsers, devices and services we use every day,” said FIDO Executive Director Brett McDowell.
“Today’s announcement gives our partners and developers a standardized way to access secure keystores across devices in order to build convenient biometric controls for users,” added Google Product Manager Christiaan Brand.
All of the major web browsers are already FIDO2 compliant, so the addition of the Android platform will make it much easier for users to unify their various accounts with a single (and secure) authentication method. The announcement indicates that FIDO2 is rapidly becoming the most widely recognized compliance standard for mobile authentication, continuing the trajectory it has been on since the platform was first announced last spring.
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