Technology giants Apple, Google, and Microsoft have announced plans to commit to a common “passwordless” sign-in standard that will allow easy, secure authentication options for users across devices and platforms.
In a press release, Apple said the three companies — which effectively control a large portion of the web — will expand support for the new sign-in standard, created jointly by the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). FIDO Alliance's goal is to replace passwords with more secure, encrypted biometric authentication systems.
"Password-only authentication is one of the biggest security problems on the web, and managing so many passwords is cumbersome for consumers, which often leads consumers to reuse the same ones across services. This practice can lead to costly account takeovers, data breaches, and even stolen identities," Apple said in the release.
"While password managers and legacy forms of two-factor authentication offer incremental improvements, there has been industry-wide collaboration to create sign-in technology that is more convenient and more secure," the Cupertino giant added. Apple said "hundreds of technology companies and service providers from around the world" worked with FIDO Alliance and W3C to create the new sign-in standards.
The new standard will allow websites and apps to offer an end-to-end passwordless option — users will sign in through fingerprint verification, face unlock, or a device PIN. "This new approach protects against phishing and sign-in will be radically more secure when compared to passwords," Apple added.
Apple, Google, and Microsoft already support the new standards in one form or the other on their platforms — Apple devices have Face ID and Touch ID, Google has fingerprint and face unlock options, and Microsoft has Windows Hello, facial recognition feature. All three companies also offer passcode/PIN unlock options on their devices.
"Previous implementations require users to sign in to each website or app with each device before they can use passwordless functionality. Today’s announcement extends these platform implementations to give users new capabilities for more seamless and secure passwordless sign-ins," Apple added.
These new capabilities are expected to become available across Apple, and Microsoft platforms over the course of this year.
“‘We applaud Apple, and Microsoft for helping make this objective a reality by committing to support this user-friendly innovation," Andrew Shikiar, Executive Director and CMO of the FIDO Alliance, said.
“Just as we design our products to be intuitive and capable, we also design them to be private and secure. Working with the industry to establish new, more secure sign-in methods that offer better protection and eliminate the vulnerabilities of passwords is central to our commitment to building (such) products." said Kurt Knight, Apple’s Senior Director of Platform Product Marketing.
“It represents nearly a decade of work we’ve done alongside FIDO, as part of our continued innovation towards a passwordless future. We look forward to making FIDO-based technology available across Chrome, ChromeOS, Android and other platforms” said Mark Risher, Senior Director of Product Management, Google.
“The complete shift to a passwordless world will begin with consumers making it a natural part of their lives. “By working together as a community across platforms, we can at last achieve this vision and make significant progress toward eliminating passwords,” says Alex Simons, Corporate Vice President, Identity Program Management, Microsoft.
