ast identity online (FIDO) standards are authentication protocols where security and user experience meet.

FIDO standards, developed by an open industry association – the FIDO Alliance, offer more security than passwords alone or one-time passcodes and allow for fast, secure, and stronger authentication.

It encompasses several authentication techniques like biometric scans, iris scans, voice recognition, or facial recognition. FIDO also facilitates existing authentication solutions such as security tokens, smart card authentication, near field communication (NFC), and more.

Interestingly, linguistic origins of the name FIDO traces to the Latin word "fido," which means trust, as defined in the University of Notre Dame Latin dictionary, and is just an appropriate acronym for the security environment, where trust is paramount.

The FIDO Alliance's mission is "to reduce the world's reliance on passwords." What started in 2009 as PayPal and Validity Sensors' vision for an industry standard that would allow biometrics for identification of online users instead of passwords has now become just that.

Today's FIDO Alliance members include global tech leaders across enterprise, payments, telecom, government, and healthcare industries and include tech titans such as Amazon, Alibaba, Facebook, and Google. FIDO-enabled websites and apps now reach over 3 billion commercial users.