Atlanta-based enterprise mobility management provider AirWatch has added fingerprint and eye-vein based authentication to its latest major platform.AirWatch 8.0., which was released this week to coincide with the first anniversary of the firm's acquisition by VMware, integrates Apple Touch ID eye-vein reading technology developed by EyeVerify.Unlike iris recognition, EyeVerify's patented technology images and pattern matches the blood vessels in the whites of the eye to uniquely identify users.Blake Brannon, AirWatch lead solutions engineer, told FierceMobileIT that the biometric authentication would appeal to certain organisations needing tighter security.”If I am a pilot using an electronic flight bag trying to get access to charting data, landing approach material, the PDF for the Boeing 737 plane I'm on–all of that information is protected behind an eight to ten character passcode that my IT organization makes me change every 15 to 30 days. There is a good chance I could forget the passcode and lock myself out,” Brannon said.”What this integration does is it allows you to use biometrics in lieu of a passcode to reduce complexity on the end user and ultimately reduce the calls to the help desk.”In addition, the integration of biometrics, such as Apple Touch ID and EyeVerify eye scan, will simplify the process for end users to access their devices.”We did the EyeVerify integration, [but] we don't expect every customer in the world to start leveraging retinal [sic] scanning recognition for authenticating into their apps. Yet for some of their highly regulated, top secret people that have very confidential information on their devices, they're going to leverage those as additional factors of authentication in addition to a passcode,” he told enterpriseappstech.”We see it [biometric authentication] as a very interesting space, but something that will also realistically have different options for different types of users across the organisation based on the type of content information they are accessing.”

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