You can now sign in to Google web pages using your fingerprint

Google continues to implement security measures to make the Internet experience much smoother and safer from cybercriminals. This time it is about being able to access certain sites of the Internet giant without having to use a password, only with our fingerprint, as we already do in practically all the mobile terminals that are sold in the market. A biometric standard that has become widespread in such a way that we can consider it the most widely used today.

This has been announced on his official blog: this new function has appeared, as the main novelty, in Google's Pixel terminals. Over the next few days it will appear on those phones that have Android 7 Nougat onwards. This feature is built using the FIDO2, W3C WebAuthn, and FIDO CTAP standards, designed to provide much faster and easier ways to personally identify yourself. The use of the FID02 standard is already possible thanks to the fact that they are available for use on web pages. The user will only have to register their fingerprint once to access the service via the web and its corresponding application.

Google ensures that your fingerprint data is in no way sent to its servers, simply being stored on your device. What is sent to the Google server is a 'pictographic proof that the fingerprint has been properly registered', this being a fundamental part of the design of the FID02 standard.

Try if you already have this fingerprint function available on Google websites

One of the websites on which this new fingerprint access system has appeared is the one corresponding to our password storage. To see if we already have access to this new security feature, let's do the following.

• Make sure your device is running Android 7 Nougat or higher.
• You have a Google account added on your Android device.
• Now, open a window in the Google Chrome browser.
• Enter the page https://passwords.google.com
• Choose a site, from those shown in the list that appears on the page, to edit your password. It is not that you are going to edit it, it is just a test to see if you already have the fingerprint access function activated on your phone.
• Follow the instructions on the screen to access your personal page. If you need to type your password by hand the fingerprint access function is not yet available.

Set up your fingerprint on your Android phone

If you have not configured fingerprint access to your mobile yet, we advise you to do so now as it is an extremely simple task, and you will be able to access your phone quickly, safely and easily. In the settings of your phone you will see a security section called 'Lock screen and password' or something similar. Remember that depending on the brand of your mobile the indications may vary. Within this screen you must look for the one corresponding to the fingerprint. To be able to configure the fingerprint, you must have previously included a pattern: you just have to place it and follow the instructions on the screen.We recommend that you add the same fingerprint at least twice to make unlocking more effective.