FIDO Alliance to bring biometrics and strong assurance to identity verification

Authentication may be getting easier, with the FIDO Alliance’s standards making strong authentication with biometrics and other technologies much more accessible, but identity proofing is becoming more difficult, according to testimony at a U.S. House Committee on Financial Services’ recent hearing.

At the hearing on “The Future of Identity in Financial Services: Threats, Challenges, and Opportunities,” Better Identity Coalition Coordinator Jeremy Grant testified that financial institutions face three major identity-related challenges, in the form of validating an identity for account creation (or onboarding), preventing synthetic identity fraud, and authentication. Grant also argued that FIDO standards are the most important development in authentication of the last 20 years.

The FIDO Alliance says in a post to its knowledge base that this disparity has motivated the decision to focus some of the organization’s efforts on identity verification and binding.

“The ability of consumers and businesses to access tools that they can use in addition to – or in lieu of – passwords is greater than it’s ever been,” Grant told the committee. “And with multi-stakeholder industry initiatives like the FIDO Alliance creating next-generation authentication standards that are getting baked into most devices, browsers and operating systems, it is becoming easier than ever to deliver on the vision of better security, privacy and convenience.”

Attackers have learned how to compromise the tools used for identity proofing and verification, Grant says, making it harder than ever for individuals to prove they are who they claim to be during the account creation process.

The FIDO Alliance is hosting a webinar today at 2pm ET to share details on its new identity verification and binding initiative. The group also recently announced the “Authenticate” industry event will be held in June, 2020 to encourage the modernization of authentication.

Article Topics

authentication  |  Better Identity Coalition  |  biometrics  |  FIDO Alliance  |  financial services  |  identity proofing  |  identity verification  |  standards