Google, Apple, and Microsoft to expand support for FIDO passwordless standard

Earlier this month, the providers of the 3 main operating systems and browsers – Google, Apple, and Microsoft – made a joint announcement: they will expand support for the FIDO passwordless sign-in standard.

This is big news for OwnID, which uses the FIDO standard, and means that our passwordless technology is about to get a serious upgrade.

Currently, the FIDO and WebAuthn standards used by OwnID allow website users to log in using phone biometrics. When users browse on their phones and wish to log in to a website, OwnID prompts the phone’s biometrics to authenticate. When users browse on desktop, OwnID presents a QR code, which users scan with their phone in order to be authenticated. The phone is always the key.

The planned upgrade to the FIDO technology means that QR codes will no longer be needed. When users browse on desktop or any other device and wish to authenticate, a notification will pop up on their phone asking them to approve the login attempt. Users will use FaceID/fingerprint to authenticate themselves and will then be logged in to their desktop or other device of interest.

But even before this upgrade is out, we already see on customer websites, like delonghi.com,  that end-users love to authenticate with their phone biometrics and don’t mind scanning a QR code when they browse on desktop. Even so, we are excited by the recent news and are eager to see this upgrade released so we can apply it to all our customers. Existing OwnID customers won’t need to do anything to enjoy this update.

This mega announcement, made by the top 3 tech organizations in the world, clearly affirms what we have always known at OwnID:

The most natural way to authenticate in the 2020s will be by using phone biometrics

Let your end-users enjoy registration and login. Email us at contact@ownid.com to find out more and enable passwordless on your website today!

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