Are there any plans to support fingerprint readers in Android apps?
I’m using an XA2 and some banking Android apps daily, and it would be pretty cool to use my fingerprint instead of typing a 6 digit PIN code every time.
Thank you!
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I agree. This is a must have, especially since ownKeepass does not support biometric identification and the sailfish browser does not communicate with it to autofill forms… iOS has still 10 years in advance over any competition, unfortunately…
This is a must have nowadays. I’m using android app (certilia) for signing documents which requires use of biometrics. Until this is implemented I’m unable to use SFOS as daily driver.
Is this even planned for some future release?
That app is the culprit. Biometrics is and was always intended only as a shortcut, not the only means of authentication. They should have a PIN or a password. Can you try telling the app developers?
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This a government based app for signing all kinds of documents. You can either use this app with biometrics (exclusively) or you can use combination of smart card (personal id card) with smart reader and app that only works on windows.
As a linux user a don’t really have an alternative here and app developer (our country) most certainly will not allow PIN-only usage (it also makes no sense without biometrics).
All in all, android app support in SFOS is a payed component and I expect this to be implemented (rather sooner than later).
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I mean, I agree with you that it’s a must have and am myself tired of writing some kind of PIN multiple times a day, but it still is a bad UX to require the use of biometrics, because it’s literally meant as an addition to conventional systems like PIN, password or pattern (which is just a PIN with different UI).
It is now 3 and half years later, and we still haven’t even heard back about this feature? Is it possible?
So many Android apps will become unusable without fingerprint reader support - I have the same situation with the administration app from my government. It should really be done asap.
Is there any way to know if it’s on the roadmap?
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Yes, technically this feature is possible to implement.
The most primitive way would be to fully devote the fingerprint reader to AAS (maybe by a setting in the Settings app), but I assume people would complain then, too. But this might be a fair approach in order to not having to implement in one go a fingerprint-reader driver which serves both worlds.
Mind that there are always other issues, you will rightly complain about, too: E.g. if the Android (AOSP) version used for AAS is out of security support. I can well understand that such issue are prioritised higher, when assessing priorities.
Afaik, there are no consumer devices made for Linux that have fingerprint readers 
Maybe someone should try making those work already.
However, if anyone were to make a driver that serves both Linux and Android - who else but Jolla is supposed to do that? I mean if that’s a thing that they won’t tackle, then no one will…
Are you saying the current version of Android used by App Support is out of security support?
Exactly. IOW, Jolla (rather Seafarix in the context of AlienDalvik / AAS) would be implementing and maintaining that alone. And it is absolutely no use for the primary customers of Seafarix: Displays in cars do not have a fingerprint reader AFAIK. Hence strategically I would push this point always to the bottom of the list, as I cannot see an incentive to invest resources into it.
Are you saying the current version of Android used by App Support is out of security support?
No. Jolla / Seafarix always managed to switch to a newer AOSP release a few months before the AOSP base of AlienDalvik / AAS became unsupported by Google. But if you have industrial customer(s), I suppose one does not have to care about security of the software stack.
In contrast to the central, most relevant component of SailfishOS, which all GUI programs (i.e. all apps, the GUI etc.) heavily use: Qt 5.6 is from 2016, with its final release in 2017 and its security support ended in 2019.