FIDO Alliance releases draft specifications for public review

The FIDO Alliance has just released the first public review draft of its technology specification.

“It is with pride that the FIDO Alliance releases the review draft specifications to the public today, before our first anniversary of starting the long overdue revolution in authentication.  Congratulations to our members for their insights, expertise, and tireless dedication to delivering better authentication that is more secure, private and easier-to-use than prevailing password schemas,” FIDO Alliance president, Michael Barrett said.  “With today’s public release of the review draft specifications, we especially welcome and anticipate new types of members coming from various enterprises.  Furthermore, we encourage Relying Parties to begin testing their unique FIDO authentication needs with the commercial solutions already available from many FIDO member companies.”

Draft specifications can be downloaded from the FIDO Alliance website.

In addition to the public draft specifications, the Alliance has also announced that its membership is now approaching 100 members. This includes new additions from Aetna, ARM, Dell, Discretix, IdentityX, Netflix, Next Biometrics, Oesterreichische Staatsdruckerei GmbH, Salesforce, SafeNet, Sonavation, STMicroelectronics, and Wave Systems.

“When I first started discussing the need for a strong authentication protocol with Michael Barrett, Taher Elgamal and others many years ago, we knew we had something big on our hands,” Ramesh Kesanupalli, founder of Nok Nok Labs and FIDO visionary said. “The progress we’ve seen in a single year in attracting membership and delivering draft specifications signifies the need for a drastic change in the marketplace and a collective determination to accomplish it. As a founding member, Nok Nok Labs is proud to be delivering FIDO Ready solutions based on these new specifications.”

“It is incumbent upon Enterprise IT to begin moving away from the world of basic username/password authentication, and we are excited to join the FIDO Alliance in shaping the future of strong authentication,” said Mike D. Kail, VP of IT Operations, Netflix.  “We look forward to collaborating with various sectors and industry experts and contributing experience and guidance on best security and authentication practices for Enterprise IT.”

According to the group, FIDO specifications emphasize a device-centric model that reflects the Alliance’s thoughtful dedication to usability, privacy and security. FIDO specifications will support a full range of authentication technologies, including biometrics such as fingerprint and iris scanners, voice and facial recognition, as well as further enable existing solutions and communications standards, such as Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), USB Security Tokens, embedded Secure Elements (eSE), Smart Cards, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Near Field Communication (NFC).

Reported previously in BiometricUpdate.com, FIDO Alliance members are set to demonstrate FIDO Ready products at the Mobile World Congress, February 24-27 in Barcelona.

Article Topics

authentication  |  FIDO Alliance  |  launch