Google Autofill on Android now supports various biometric authentication methods

Most of us use some form of password manager and in the end most of them have very similar features and now Google’s first party offering is gaining an important feature that the others already have — biometric authentication.

Biometric authentication has been a feature of many third party password managers for a while now and is set to arrive on Google’s password autofill service according to a change in the Play Services app.

Google are adding this much needed security to their service in an update to Play Services — although some have seen this hidden within a month-old version of Play Services suggesting that the new security addition is actually a server-side switch activation.

While we have not seen it on our devices just yet you can find it yourself by going into your Settings app –> Google –> Autofill –> Autofill with Google –> Autofill Security. Inside here you will find a credentials toggle to allow you to turn on or off the biometric authentication before Google Autofill will fill your password fields.

After toggling credentials on any time Google Autofill tries to fill a field you will be asked to confirm your credentials whether it be via fingerprint, face unlock or retinal authentication.

This security should have been included in Google Autofill service from the beginning and we cannot remember a time when our third party password managers did NOT have it. Better late than never right? Will this change convince you to switch over to Google Autofill?