Fujitsu will begin offering a new FIDO-compliant service for online biometric authentication. The "Online Biometric Authentication Service" will initially roll out from early April 2017, starting with Japan.
With this service, Fujitsu will provide companies that offer online services with the servers and software necessary to implement FIDO (Fast IDentity Online), services that support the construction of cloud environments, and also software development kits and development support for incorporating FIDO into client-side applications.
Customers can use this service to easily build online personal authentication systems with robust security and that do not require passwords for a variety of day-to-day situations, such as online banking and shopping, ticket arrangements, and car sharing. This also reduces the burden of getting online authentication services up and running. In addition, because this service functions to use FIDO with facial recognition obtained through camera-equipped smartphones and other biometrics, the number of supported devices on the client side can be dramatically expanded.
This service is being positioned as one of the IoT solutions that are being developed for FUJITSU Digital Business Platform MetaArc(1). With MetaArc, which enables customers to undergo digital transformations, Fujitsu is supporting connections between people, things, and infrastructure across company and industry boundaries, and contributing to creating new value and strengthening competitiveness for customers.
Background
As the number of people using online banking and e-commerce has increased in recent years, there are concerns about the safety of online authentication via passwords for a variety of services, and the harm from leaks of personal information and account spoofing have become a problem for society. Password-based personal authentication has also been criticized for the high risks of harm from identity fraud and unauthorized use of services, such as list attacks, which target repeated use of the same password for multiple services, and key loggers, which record a keyboard's activity to steal passwords.
At the same time, biometric-authentication-equipped devices, such as smartphones, are becoming familiar to users, creating an environment where biometric authentication can be easily used.
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