Fingerprint biometric identification solutions provider BIO-key International has announced that it has a solution to the quickly rising need of personal privacy information control, and that solution’s name is FreeChoiceID – a new module for the company’s WEB-key platform. In an effort to keep control in the user’s hand as Touch ID moves from the shelves and into the pockets of Apple-lovers, and the rest of the world eagerly awaits an Android fingerprint sensor lock, BIO-key has developed patent pending technology that will give users complete control over where template information is stored and what programs can access it.
This sort of easy functionality is coming from an encouraging attitude that has risen up in the industry following the Biometric Consortium Conference 2013 and Biometrics UnPlugged in September: support for industry-wide open authentication standards such as FIDO.
“With the introduction of fingerprint authentication on mobile devices such as Apple’s Touch ID, our customers want to incorporate those on-device authentication modules into an overall fingerprint biometric ecosystem which spans mobile, laptop, as well as face-to-face authentication scenarios,” says BIO-key’s Vice President of Strategy and Business Development Jim Sullivan. “Consistent with this vision, we plan to allow users with accessible on-device biometric subsystems to associate them with their WEB-key cloud-based identity, and then conduct authentication via WEB-key, using the local subsystem on their device. As new accessible biometric authentication modules enter the market, we will incorporate them into this ecosystem as well. A single integration with BIO-key will leverage all available possibilities.”
FreeChoiceID is a solution that BIO-key hopes will put users in full control of their biometric data through remote encryption that allows constant management of where a template is being stored, who and what has access to it and in what form it exists on said device or cloud. According to BIO-key, this reality that the FreeChoiceID module pushes for is enabled by the proliferation of smartphones, and other mobile devices, which not only allow but also constantly require WEB-key users to be in constant control.
This sort of attitude towards biometric information management is an extension of the dynamic nature of a workplace that must constantly reevaluate policies surrounding bring your own device (BYOD). With the wide variety of mobile devices on the market that already make BYOD such a nightmare for unprepared administrators, having just as much variety in terms of mobile fingerprint devices will necessitate an additional level of control, lest biometrics become a liability and not a point of efficiency.
FreeChoiceID is mobile device management (MDM) for biometric BYOD. It allows people to play by their own rules while working well with others.
“The time has come for ubiquitous fingerprint biometric authentication,” said BIO-key CEO Michael DePasquale, knowing full well that ubiquity in the workplace means management and policy.
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