NXT-ID and Giesecke+Devrient become FIDO Alliance members

The Fast IDentity Online Alliance or “FIDO Alliance” has welcomed secure communication and identity management solutions provider Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) as a member, and NXT-ID, a biometric authentication company specializing in mobile commerce, as a Sponsor member this week.

The FIDO Alliance is an industry consortium that develops standards for strong online authentication. Its members share technology and collaborate to deliver open authentication specifications. This makes FIDO-compliant authentication methods interoperable, more secure and private, and easier-to-use.

Still an early stage technology company, this year NXT-ID launched its biometric wallet and payments device, the “Wocket”, which costs $150 and employs biometric technology to authorize purchases anywhere credit cards are accepted. NXT-ID is also behind a mobile biometrics solutions aimed at bringing modular facial and voice recognition, as well as other forms of biometric authentication to platforms including smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

“Nxt-ID is very enthusiastic about joining FIDO Alliance and contributing to the future of online authentication with our core competencies in biometrics and encryption,” Nxt-ID CEO Gino Pereira said in a statement. “Security does not have to be inconvenient, and this is the cornerstone upon which NXT-ID and Wocket are founded.”

The FIDO Alliance was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies. The Alliance wants to developing standards-based specifications for simpler, stronger authentication that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce reliance on passwords.

FIDO specifications are aimed at a wide range of biometric authentication technologies relating to fingerprints, eyes, voice and facial recognition, as well as existing solutions and communications standards, such as Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), USB Security Tokens, embedded Secure Elements (eSE), Smart Cards, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Near Field Communication.

The FIDO Alliance and its specifications have also helped drive innovation.

A founding member of the FIDO Alliance, Nok Nok Labs, has announced on Wednesday the integration of its NNL S3 Authentication Suite with CA Single Sign-On, a flexible application access management solution from CA Technologies.

This means Nok Nok’s FIDO Ready Multifactor Authentication Server (MFAS), built using specifications from the FIDO Alliance, can provide an additional user verification method (CA Single Sign-On) to enhance the security of MFAS and support hundreds of web applications leveraging FIDO-Ready devices already in the marketplace.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometrics  |  FIDO Alliance  |  Giesecke & Devrient (G+D)  |  mobile  |  Nok Nok Labs  |  NXT-ID