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Google developing password free login system

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Google is developing its own way to log in to a device without a password, using a token. This comes hot on the trail of Apple’s presentation of a fingerprint login for iOS last week. Both systems have sparked controversy over personal data collection, but Google now claims its token system doesn’t store information.

The announcement of iOS 7 Golden Master‘s new fingerprint login system provoked German data protection expert Johannes Caspar to claim is was inadvisable to keep such data on a device.

Google developing password free login system

‘The biometric features of your body, like your fingerprints, cannot be erased or deleted. They stay with you until the end of your life and stay constant — they cannot be changed. One should thus avoid using biometric ID technologies for non-vital or casual everyday uses like turning on a smartphone. This is especially true if a biometric ID, like your fingerprint, is stored in a data file on the electronic device you are using.’

Caspar goes on to explain how Apple’s claim that fingerprint data is only stored on your device, and not sent over any networks unconvincing. The average smartphone user will not have the technical know-how to know what personal data is stored on a device, how to access and control it, or how to be sure a bogus app cannot have access to it. Our biometric data is unique to us, and should not be used simply for convenience.

More criticism of fingerprint scanning has come from The Huffington Post, which wrote about how people with unclear or worn fingerprints can find reliance on them for security unrealistic. Construction workers and teachers, artists and other professions that can be tough on hands are not well served by a reliance on fingerprints.

The token system Google is testing uses a hardware token, which, when touched to a device, or attached via USB can authenticate access to a device. These tokens create temporary passwords to give you access to your advice, and according to Google have very strong encryption and are easy to use.

Passwords have been an issue since the beginning of mass computing. Whether it’s people using weak passwords, or the same passwords for different services because they don’t want to remember lots of long, complex ones; text passwords clearly have problems. But using our unique biometric data offers up its own problems – having your fingerprint or iris data stolen might be much more traumatic than someone cracking your Facebook password, for instance.

With greater awareness of the costs of giving our data to private companies, and the reality that if this data is in the cloud, it is at risk of exposure to government agencies who might spy on us. The Google system does not store data, and if you lose it can be blocked by cancellation much like you would a sim or credit card.

[Source: WSJ, apple.slashdot.org, Huffington Post]

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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