Mobile Smart Portal LINE Corporation Appointed to FIDO Alliance Board of Directors

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 17, 2017 -- The FIDO Alliance, the industry consortium with 250+ member and partner organizations developing open industry standards for simpler, stronger authentication, announced today that LINE Corporation has been appointed to its Board of Directors. The FIDO Alliance Board of Directors guides the strategic vision of the Alliance and its activities to reduce the world’s reliance on passwords with next generation FIDO® Certified solutions.

LINE Corporation is based in Japan and operates the LINE messaging app, a global service used in more than 230 countries and territories. It offers free one-to-one and group messaging.

“We look forward to contributing to the FIDO Alliance at the board level, as LINE is dedicated to improving security and convenience for our users and the world,” said Takesh Nakayama, CPO/CISO of LINE Corporation. “We will accomplish this by implementing the password-less authentication methods proposed by FIDO Alliance, not only for the main LINE messaging app and other existing apps, but also for future IoT and other services. By implementing FIDO authentication methods into LINE and other applications, we expect to resolve various security and privacy concerns, including phishing, account hijacking, and unauthorized use of services, stemming from existing password authentication systems.”

“LINE is a true innovator in social media, providing an innovative platform that gives users across many Asian countries more convenient ways to interact and transact online. LINE's online privacy and security goals are very much aligned with the FIDO Alliance vision of providing more convenient ways to authenticate to online services while simultaneously providing strong security,” said Brett McDowell, executive director of the FIDO Alliance. “We look forward to LINE’s contributions as a board member of the FIDO Alliance to help us reduce the reliance on passwords worldwide, including but not limited to seeing LINE bring simpler, stronger FIDO Authentication to its hundreds of millions of users.”

Specifications and certifications from the FIDO Alliance enable an interoperable ecosystem of on-device authenticators that can be used with compliant mobile apps and websites. Many top service providers, such as Facebook, Google, PayPal, Samsung, Bank of America, NTT DOCOMO, Dropbox, and Salesforce, have made FIDO Authentication available to protect more than 3 billion online accounts. The mobile industry is rapidly adopting FIDO Authentication, with FIDO Certified solutions already available on flagship mobile devices from six of the top ten mobile handset manufacturers. Additionally, more than 340 products are now FIDO Certified, giving enterprises and online service providers a rich variety of interoperable FIDO Authentication solutions to choose from.

About the FIDO Alliance

The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, www.fidoalliance.org, was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The FIDO Alliance is changing the nature of authentication with standards for simpler, stronger authentication that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce reliance on passwords. FIDO authentication is stronger, private, and easier to use when authenticating to online services.

The FIDO Alliance Board of Directors includes leading global organizations: Aetna, Inc.; Alibaba Holdings; American Express; ARM Holdings plc; Bank of America Corporation; BC Card; CrucialTec; Daon; Egis; Feitian Technologies; Fingerprint Cards; Gemalto; Google; Infineon Technologies AG; ING; Intel; Lenovo; LINE Corp. (NYSE:LN); Mastercard; Microsoft; Nok Nok Labs, Inc.; NTT DOCOMO, INC.; NXP Semiconductors N.V.; Oberthur Technologies OT; PayPal; Qualcomm, Inc.; RaonSecure Co Ltd; RSA^®; Samsung Electronics, Ltd; Synaptics; USAA; VASCO Data Security International, Inc.; Visa Inc.; Yubico.

Contact
Megan Shamas
Montner Tech PR
203-226-9290
[email protected]