NHS Digital has released two pieces of code under open source that will allow developers to include biometric log-in into their products and services.
It said the code allows patients to access the NHS App through face or fingerprint recognition technology.
This should provide the scope for digital services in the NHS to provide secure log-in to their apps with an NHS approved system.
Chris Fleming, delivery director at NHS Digital, said: “The NHS App team has open sourced code which will help those using NHS log-in as an identity and authentication provider to confirm people’s identity using fingerprint and facial recognition.
“We received great feedback from log-in users as it sped up the process considerably for them, and we wanted others to benefit from the work. The team has released two libraries for developers.”
Earlier in the year, a blogpost from NHS Digital said the work involved the use of the FIDO (Fast Identity Online) UAF (Universal Authentication Framework) protocol. This is based on public key cryptography and defines three operations for users: registration, authentication and deregistration.
It involves a private key being stored on the user’s device and ensuring it is only accessible when they enter their fingerprint or use facial recognition.
Image from NHS Digital, Open Government Licence v3.0
