Remembering app passwords is such a pain. And to top it off, you can’t unlock an app if you forget it. Google seems to have figured just how irritating remembering a multitude of passwords is, which is why it is going to soon begin testing an alternative to passwords next month. If it works, you could soon bid farewell to all those annoying-to-remember words for good.
The new feature for securing Android apps called the Trust API (part of ‘Project Abacus’) was announced by Daniel Kaufman, the head of the company’s ATAP (Advanced Technology and Projects) at the company’s I/O conference, reported The Guardian.
At the conference, Kaufman said:
Assuming it goes well, this should become available to every Android developer around the world by the end of the year. We have a phone, and these phones have all these sensors in them. Why couldn’t it just know who I was, so I don’t need a password? I should just be able to work.
So this is how it will work
This new login method will replace your passwords with a ‘trust-based’ system, which will record the way you use your phone on a daily basis to try determine your personality.
Running in the background, the phone’s suite of sensors will continuously monitor your behavioral patterns and look for a number of indicators that are unique to you. For instance: the system will analyse your face, your voice, how you type, how you swipe, how you move and where you are.
All of these indicators are fed into the API, which will then generate a ‘trust score’ that will let you unlock your apps without a password. If the trust score falls below a set parameter, the user might be asked to furnish some additional authentication.
Google’s whole idea behind this project is make devices more secure. The company feels that while it is convenient for someone to hack/ steal a password, it will certainly be difficult for them to impersonate someone’s behaviour.