Samsung makes important passkeys announcement at SDC24
Truth be told, developer conferences are generally a pretty dull place to be, unless you are a developer, of course. However, for journalists, they can often drop the most interesting and surprising of news without a whole lot of waving and shouting. Such is the case at the 10th anniversary Samsung Developer’s Conference taking place October 04 in San Jose. An official press release has revealed that Samsung is ramping up the use of passkeys and accelerating the death of the password: Samsung Passkey is coming to your smart television and refrigerator in 2025.
The SDC24 Samsung Passkey Security Announcement
The Samsung press release started off as boringly as you might expect for these things: “a decade of collaboration and innovation,” a “commitment to using AI technology,” and “empowering innovators to leverage new technologies to break new ground,” tell you all you need to know. Well, almost all. Scroll down 29 paragraphs, and if you are still awake, you get to the juicy stuff:
“Samsung also highlighted the expansion of Passkey, which will come to Tizen beginning with 2025 TV models, the refrigerator with AI Family Hub™ and home appliances with AI Home. Passkey will bring greater convenience and security to users, while also supporting web browser-based logins through mobile QR code scanning.”
OK, I admit that paragraph 28 wasn’t too boring in that it dealt with strengthening security governance so that new AI experiences “never require the sacrificing of personal data.” I mean, we’ve all heard that before, but let’s see how Samsung’s promise to use the blockchain-based, multi-device security solution known as Knox Matrix to enhance security across devices to include TVs and home appliances pans out before damning it.
The Samsung Passkey announcement also involves televisions and refrigerators, so it’s refreshing to see the idea of improved authentication security moving away from being just a smartphone, tablet, “computing” thing.
Apple has made moves towards bringing more robust sign-in practices to iPhone users with its Passwords app for password and passkey management across devices, and Google has long been a pioneer in the passkey adoption field as well as enforcing stricter password rules for users. This latest move from Samsung may be a surprise, but it’s a very welcome one.