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Google to Ditch Passwords by End of Year

Google to Ditch Passwords by End of Year

Google plans to remove the all passwords by the end of the year as it begins testing alternative login methods.
This means Android users will only be able to login to services by their movement patterns, typing methods and their face.
The proposed new feature, named the ‘Trust API’, was shown to developers at the organisation’s I/O conference and is set for initial testing with various big financial companies as soon as next month.
The idea was first put mooted last year, under the name Project Abacus, with the aim of killing passwords.
The project intends to combine several ‘weaker’ indicators of a person to form one ultra-reliable and secure bit of evidence that confirms you have access to a service.
The feature will be constantly running in the phone’s background and will keep track of the matching indicators to ensure the phone is being used by the right person.
Google say that each indicator alone is a far less secure way of ensuring security but insists that all the indicators combined will result in a safeguard that is ten times more secure than the fingerprint method.
API’s testing phase this year will first of all see it used by banks verifying customer login on Android devices and, if successful, will see the technology available to all developers by the end of the year.
Developers of the system say that one of its big advantages over traditional passwords is that, unlike a password, the API provides a score of how sure it is that you are who you say you are.
Therefore, it is able to ask for more information about the person if it is not 100% sure whether to verify access.
London-based firm Nok Nok Labs are also working on a similar plan and has put forward similar proposals that link information from mobile networks, users and manufacturers.

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