Google has launched a brand new function referred to as Restore Credentials to assist customers restore their account entry to third-party apps securely after migrating to a brand new Android machine.
A part of Android’s Credential Supervisor API, the function goals to cut back the effort of re-entering the login credentials for each app in the course of the handset alternative.
“With Restore Credentials, apps can seamlessly onboard customers to their accounts on a brand new machine after they restore their apps and information from their earlier machine,” Google’s Neelansh Sahai mentioned.
The tech big mentioned the method happens mechanically within the background when a consumer restores apps and information from a earlier machine, enabling apps to signal customers again into the respective apps with out requiring any further interplay.
That is completed by way of what’s referred to as a restore key, which, in actuality, is a public key that is suitable with FIDO2 requirements resembling passkeys.
Thus when a consumer indicators in to an app that helps this function, their restore key’s saved to the Credential Supervisor regionally on machine and in encrypted format. Optionally, the encrypted restore key may also be saved to the cloud if cloud backup is enabled.
Ought to they transition to a brand new telephone and restore their apps, the restore keys are requested as a part of the method, permitting them to mechanically check in to their account with out having to re-enter their login data.
“If the present signed-in consumer is trusted, you possibly can generate a restore key at any level after they’ve authenticated in your app,” Google instructs app builders. “For example, this could possibly be instantly after login or throughout a routine test for an current restore key.”
App builders are additionally really helpful to delete the related restore key as quickly because the consumer indicators out to keep away from them getting caught in a endless loop of signing out deliberately and mechanically getting logged again in.
It is value noting that Apple already has an identical function in iOS that leverages an attribute referred to as kSecAttrAccessible to manage an app’s entry to a particular credential saved within the iCloud Keychain.
“The kSecAttrAccessible attribute lets you management merchandise availability relative to the lock state of the machine,” Apple notes in its documentation.
“It additionally permits you to specify eligibility for restoration to a brand new machine. If the attribute ends with the string ThisDeviceOnly, the merchandise might be restored to the identical machine that created a backup, but it surely is not migrated when restoring one other machine’s backup information.”
The event comes as Google shipped the primary Developer Preview of Android 16 with the newest model of the Privateness Sandbox on Android and an improved Privateness Dashboard that provides the flexibility to view which apps have accessed delicate permissions over a seven-day interval.
This additionally follows the launch of the up to date Android Safety Paper, which delves into the working system’s suite of built-in safety capabilities, together with options like theft safety, non-public area, sanitizers, and lockdown mode, which goals to limit entry to a tool by turning off Good Lock, biometric unlocking, and notifications on the lock display.
