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Face ID and Touch ID for the Web

developer.apple.com

11–20 of 274 posts

Re: Face ID and Touch ID for the Web

#12
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’d need to have a standard HTML element like or something and let the browser handle mapping it to whatever specific hardware the device is using

The issue is that it's just a token that would simply say Passed/Fail. So it's trusting the client/browser.

It's more than that -- from what I'm seeing, it looks like it's a cryptographic token, presumably signed by a certificate that's embedded somewhere inaccessible in the device (probably in the secure element).

Re: Face ID and Touch ID for the Web

#13
post #9

Going to have to give serious thought to where I will and won't use this. There are a lot of implications - no ability to automate and giving others data on you were provably in front of some machine are two big ones.

That's a really interesting point. If this really does allow a web user to prove that a human interacted with the computer, it'd make for a really nice CAPTCHA replacement.

Re: Face ID and Touch ID for the Web

#14
The keynote a few days ago failed to mention FaceID used to opening your mac... and this video shows/mentions FaceID on a macOS11 website?

Seems they missed a step here with rolling it out, or are withholding the obvious. I'm assuming the latter.

Re: Face ID and Touch ID for the Web

#17
Interesting, Apple is letting you change your default web browser with this new iOS version, but also adding Face ID and Touch ID to Safari.

Why would anyone want to build these features if they're so platform / browser specific? Does anyone know if these auth features might work on other browsers on iPhone?

Re: Face ID and Touch ID for the Web

#19

Interesting, Apple is letting you change your default web browser with this new iOS version, but also adding Face ID and Touch ID to Safari. Why would anyone want to build these features if they're so platform / browser specific? Does anyone know if these auth features might work on other browsers on iPhone?

There isn't a reason it wouldn't work - the browsers all use the same engine anyway.

Re: Face ID and Touch ID for the Web

#20
post #2

If the web migrates to biometric sensors for authentication, I hope this won't suffer from vendor lock-in. When every new device ships with facial recognition and/or a fingerprint reader, it will be nice to login using my face/fingerprint irrespective of the device I'm on.

This looks like a WebAuthn implementation, in which case it's an established standard and lots of vendors have interchangeable implementations. For example, Windows Hello has been WebAuthn compatible (FIDO2) for a while for sites configured to accept on-device authenticators.
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