Underscores Rapid Market Adoption of FIDO as the New Standard for Strong Authentication
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/07/16 -- The FIDO® Alliance, the cross-industry creators of open standards for simpler, stronger authentication, announced today that Japan's largest mobile network operator NTT DOCOMO, INC. ("DOCOMO") has extended its market-leading deployment of FIDO® Certified strong authentication to its millions of customers with Touch ID®-equipped Apple iPhones and other iOS1 devices. DOCOMO adds this new FIDO-for-iOS capability to an already impressive suite of 10 FIDO Certified Android devices from Samsung, Fujitsu, Sharp, and Sony Mobile, ensuring that their customers enjoy unprecedented choice between platforms, devices and biometric authentication modalities including fingerprint touch, fingerprint swipe, and iris recognition.
DOCOMO's decision to add support for FIDO strong authentication to the base capabilities of Touch ID underscores both the security benefits and the rapid market adoption of FIDO standards in just over a year since the specifications were published. Today more than 100 solutions have been FIDO Certified and, in addition to DOCOMO, hundreds of millions of end-users' web and mobile apps have been FIDO-enabled for strong authentication protection by leading service providers, including Google, PayPal, Samsung, Bank of America, Dropbox, and GitHub.
"The expansion of cross-platform support from NTT DOCOMO highlights the growing global consensus that using open standards from FIDO Alliance is the right strategy for moving the connected economy off its dependency on passwords," said Brett McDowell, executive director of the FIDO Alliance. "As more service providers look to reduce fraud risk and give customers a better, faster user experience, I believe they will be following DOCOMO's example and deploying cross-platform FIDO-enabled, privacy-respecting biometric authentication that is simultaneously more secure and convenient."
More details on DOCOMO's FIDO-for-iOS deployment
Using FIDO specifications, DOCOMO is enabling its customers to securely authenticate themselves with Touch ID instead of a password to the DOCOMO d ACCOUNT™ app, which will be available in the App Store on March 9. From there, they will have secure access to DOCOMO account details, billing and services, including mobile gaming and music platforms d game™ and d music™, and shopping sites such as d delivery™ and d shopping™. DOCOMO is also removing the password from carrier billing, allowing customers to approve their payments via Touch ID.
In a media update about this news, DOCOMO said, "The app will encourage more DOCOMO partner companies to incorporate the FIDO standard as users demand biometric authentication for an increasingly diverse range of mobile handsets."
About The FIDO Alliance
The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, www.fidoalliance.org, was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The FIDO Alliance is changing the nature of authentication with standards for simpler, stronger authentication that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce reliance on passwords. FIDO authentication is stronger, private, and easier to use when authenticating to online services.
The FIDO Alliance Board of Directors includes leading global organizations: Aetna, Inc. (NYSE: AET); Alibaba Holdings (NYSE: BABA); American Express (NYSE: AXP); ARM Holdings plc (LSE: ARM) (NASDAQ: ARMH); Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC); BC Card; CrucialTec (KRX: 114120); Daon; Egis; Google (NASDAQ: GOOG); Intel (NASDAQ: INTC); ING (NYSE: ING); Infineon Technologies AG (FSE: IFX) (OTCQX: IFNNY); Lenovo (NASDAQ: LNVGY); MasterCard (NYSE: MA); Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT); Nok Nok Labs, Inc.; NTT DOCOMO, INC. (NYSE: DCM); NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI); Oberthur Technologies OT; PayPal (NASDAQ: EBAY); Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM); RSA®; Samsung Electronics, Ltd (KOSCOM: SECL); Synaptics (NASDAQ: SYNA); USAA; VASCO Data Security International, Inc. (NASDAQ: VDSI); Visa Inc. (NYSE: V); Yubico.
1 iOS 9 or later
"d ACCOUNT," "d game," "d music," "d delivery," and "d shopping" are trademarks or registered trademarks of NTT DOCOMO, INC. NTT DOCOMO's "d ACCOUNT," "d delivery" and "d shopping" services are only available to subscribers in Japan.
Touch ID is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc.
iOS is a trademark or registered trademark of Cisco in the U.S. and other countries and is used under license.
Android is a trademark or registered trademark of Google, Inc.
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Source: The FIDO Alliance