FIDO Authentication Poised for Continued Growth as Alliance Submits FIDO 2.0 Web API to W3C

TOKYO, JAPAN and MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 19, 2015) -   The FIDO® (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance (https://www.fidoalliance.org/), an industry consortium launched in 2013 to revolutionize online security with open standards for simpler, stronger authentication, today announced at a FIDO seminar in Tokyo that tens of millions of FIDO-based devices are now in use to protect end-user and enterprise accounts with strong, cryptographic-based authentication at major relying parties such as Google, PayPal, NTT DOCOMO, INC., Bank of America, Dropbox, and GitHub.

With 72 FIDO Certified products, nearly 250 Alliance member organizations from around the world including US, UK, and German government agencies, and more than a dozen trade association partners, the market is clearly saying now is the time to deploy FIDO authentication to modernize outdated password systems.

To carry this momentum into 2016, the FIDO Alliance today submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international standards organization for the World Wide Web, a set of three technical specifications required to define a standard Web-based API designed to increase FIDO's existing desktop, Chrome, Android and iOS reach to support other platforms.

This FIDO-built Web API is intended to ensure standards-based strong authentication across all Web browsers and related Web platform infrastructure. 

"FIDO specifications define a unified mechanism to use cryptographic credentials for unphishable authentication on the Web. The specifications enable a wide variety of user experiences and modalities," said Sampath Srinivas, vice president of FIDO Alliance. "We are very excited about today's announcement and what it means for the future of ubiquitous unphishable FIDO authentication on the Web."

W3C will now have change control of this API, with ongoing collaboration from FIDO Alliance member companies and other web ecosystem stakeholders. W3C is proposing a new Web Authentication Working Group to its membership. The FIDO Alliance will support the adoption of this W3C published Web API through the established FIDO Certification Program.

"The mission of the FIDO Alliance has always been stronger, simpler authentication: stronger to help protect data, and simpler to address the problems users face trying to create and remember multiple usernames and passwords. In order to achieve this mission, FIDO authentication needs to be available everywhere…on all the devices you use and with all of the apps & services you use," said FIDO Alliance president Dustin Ingalls. "With FIDO support in the browser and in the platform, it will be easier than ever for apps and services to take full advantage of FIDO authentication helping to free the world from passwords. Today's announcement showcases how the work we've been doing in FIDO 2.0, and the submissions we are making to W3C will help us meet our goal of enabling FIDO authentication everywhere."