BIO-key and InterDigital to launch OpenID-based multifactor authentication for Android

BIO-key International and InterDigital have jointly announced that the two companies will introduce and demonstrate InterDigital’s multifactor authentication solution — which incorporates BIO-key’s fingerprint authentication for the Android platform – at Mobile World Congress, set to take place in Barcelona, Spain this month.

According to InterDigital, the new product is meant to address consumer authentication needs for Mobile Network Operators and other large-scale service providers. The new solution also features full compliance with OpenID and is capable of leveraging Trustronic’s Global Platform compliant Trusted Execution Environment and API.

“Consumers are frequently being asked to authenticate to the services they access on their mobile devices, and the need to remember multiple passwords, usernames and other credentials is becoming a serious obstacle to rolling out new, easier-to-use services. Stronger, more secure authentication that is also convenient is needed by both consumers and service providers in order to realize the full potential of what mobile computing brings to consumers,” Jim Nolan, Executive Vice President, R&D at InterDigital said. “InterDigital’s MFA architecture aims to provide consumers with a seamless and secure authentication experience, and give service providers a granular authentication capability that matches the transaction risk with the assurance of the user accessing the service.”

According to InterDigital, the new product will be available for scheduled demonstrations at InterDigital’s pavilion in Hall 7 Stand 7A71.

“We have met our development milestones for the project with InterDigital and together address some of the glaring problems in contemporary IAM deployments. Consumers are inundated with the need to remember a plethora of authentication credentials and desire a user-friendly, frictionless and secure authentication experience. Users also want the ability to control access to their own biometric data, wherever it is stored, and shouldn’t be prevented from using it to claim and protect their own identity in a cloud based identity ecosystem,” Mike DePasquale, BIO-key’s Chairman and CEO said. “Apple created positive momentum for biometric technology with the iPhone 5S and brought this technology into the mainstream. Our flexible MFA architecture embraces both device and network-based authentication capabilities thus meeting the needs of risk-averse third-party service providers who want more than closed, device-only authentication approaches. We see the importance of a hybrid approach to achieve persistent identity proofing – a long lasting physical to digital identity mapping that spans devices. This new platform reduces risk to both service providers and consumers, by enabling secure enrollment, duplicate enrollment prevention and other fraud prevention that on-device designs cannot address alone. The system creates flexibility to authentication on-device of in the Cloud, while allowing users the right to maintain privacy and control their own information.”

Reported previously, Bio-key International recently added three new directors to its board, and appointed DePasquale to a joint Chairman-and-CEO position.

Article Topics

Android  |  authentication  |  BIO-key  |  MFA  |  MWC