Announced at MWC, the FIDO Alliance and Google, maintain that passwords could one day be fully eradicated in the mobile ecosystem. Companies including Amazon, ARM, Google, Intel, Lenovo and Microsoft are part of the FIDO Alliance tasked with improving authentication standards.

The Android operating system is now FIDO2 certified which allows passwordless authentication on devices providing they are operating on Android version 7.0 or above. This gives users the ability to leverage their device’s built-in fingerprint sensor and/or FIDO security keys for secure passwordless access to websites and native applications that support the FIDO2 protocols.

According to the FIDO Alliance, “Web and app developers can now add FIDO strong authentication to their Android apps and websites through a simple API call, to bring passwordless, phishing-resistant security to a rapidly expanding base of end users who already have leading Android devices and/or will upgrade to new devices in the future”.

FIDO2 is backed by strong cryptographic security that is transparent to the user and protects against phishing, man-inthe- middle attacks and attacks using stolen credentials.