FIDO Biometric Authentication Products Hit New Milestone

The FIDO Alliance has certified over 150 biometric and second-factor authentication products, showing an increase of 50 percent over the course of just one quarter.

In a press release on Monday (April 4), the alliance noted significant growth in the Asia-Pacific region, which highlights increased global acceptance of FIDO specifications for strong authentication technology.

“Fifty percent growth in certified products in just three months is further evidence that the FIDO specifications are increasingly accepted as the new standard for strong authentication technology,” Brett McDowell, executive director of the FIDO Alliance, said in the statement.

“You can see from the companies listed in today’s announcement that the Asia-Pacific region is one of the fastest-growing markets for FIDO authentication, largely driven by early demand from financial services and mobile network operators. This reinforces that the demand for simpler, stronger FIDO authentication is truly global,” McDowell continued.

This latest round of certifications grows the list of FIDO Certified products and services from providers who are backing FIDO standards. According to the FIDO Alliance, the top five global handset manufacturers have enabled devices with FIDO authentication. Additionally, service providers, such as Google, PayPal and GitHub, have all sought to protect hundreds of millions of end users’ desktop and mobile apps via FIDO authentication, the alliance said.

Last week, it was announced that eBay is opening up, as it were, to the FIDO Alliance — marking a first for any eCommerce company.

The online marketplace announced that it has directly achieved FIDO certification, as well as open-sourced a FIDO UAF authentication server and Android client, thus gaining membership in both. This is notable, shared a press release, in that eBay is the first company to contribute to the multi-factor authentication dialogue (via FIDO) and the effort for open authentication standards in commerce from the perspective of an eCommerce platform.