Google announces Android Ready SE Alliance
Google announced the launch of the Android Ready SE Alliance to boost the adoption of numeric keys and handheld IDs.
The coalition aims to confirm that the new phones have the basic equipment to eventually replace car keys, home, and wallets.
All Pixel phones from Google since 2018 have included the Titan M chip, the so-called Secure SE, separate from your phone's processor.
This chip does things like storing encryption keys and validating the operating system.
Google now sees the Titan M and other secure items like it as the key to bringing features like digital passports and ID cards to Android phones.
To this end, it has formed the Android Ready SE Alliance, an alliance made up of Secure SE vendors and device manufacturers, which aims to accelerate the adoption of these features in Android.
Alliance members are working together to create a suite of open source, ready-to-use applications for Secure Element SE chips.
The group launched its first small program using StrongBox, a tool for storing encryption keys.
“We believe Secure SE provides the best pathway to introduce these new consumer use cases in Android,” the company said.
In the near future, the alliance is focusing on use cases, such as digital car keys and mobile driving licenses.
While phones and tablets are an obvious starting point, they are just the beginning, and as Google indicates, StrongBox is also available on WearOS, Android Auto, and Android TV devices.
Meanwhile, the company says: It has several Android manufacturers who are using Android Ready SE for their devices.
Google says StrongBox and tamper-resistant gear has become an important requirement for emerging user features, including digital keys for the car, home and office, mDL mobile driver's license, national identity, electronic passports, and eMoney solutions.
All of these features must be powered by tamper-resistant hardware to protect the integrity of the application's executables, user data, keys, wallet, and more.