There’s a possibility that your typical password could be become something from the past, at least on devices that run Android. During Google’s I/O event, it was announced that the company is pushing ahead with plans to replace passwords “trust scores” which wold incorporate various data points about users to to determine if they are legitimate or not.Google’s Trust API is the result of a year’s worth of password work. Over the coming weeks, Google will be rolling it out to “several very large” financial institutions.
“Assuming it goes well, this should become available to every Android developer around the world by the end of the year,” Dan Kaufman, head of ATAP at Google, said at I/O.
So what’s up with this trust score thing, and how does it work?
The trust score is based off a number of user-specific data points including:
- Current location
- Facial recognition
- Typing Patterns
Although these are some decent ways to determine the legitimacy of specific users, some businesses might want a higher trust score than others. As an example, it would be a good idea if a bank app had a higher trust score than something like Facebook. In order to monitor its sensors and information, the Trust API will always be running in the background, so that it’ll be able to provide apps with the current trust scores, which would be its confidence level that you are who you say you are.
“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,” Kaufman said.
The research behind the Trust API seems to be promising, although it’s success seems contingent with the bank trails.