Google Aims To Make Passwords Extinct By 2017

In the next month, Google will be testing an alternative method to conventional passwords for Android users.

The new feature, announced to developers at the company’s I/O conference last week, is called the Trust API, and will first be tested with “several very large financial institutions” beginning in June, according to Google’s Daniel Kaufman, head of ATAP (Advanced Technology and Projects).

“Assuming it goes well, this should become available to every Android developer around the world by the end of the year,” said Kaufman.

The “trust score” is based off various user-specific data points – including current location, facial recognition and typing patterns – with certain apps possibly requiring different scores. For example, a banking app might want a higher trust score than a social media app. The Trust API will constantly run in the background of users’ devices, monitoring its sensors and collecting information so that it can provide apps with the current trust score.

“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.