The FIDO Alliance hosted its annual India Working Group (FIWG) Member Meetup & Workshop on June 6, 2025, at Google’s Ananta campus in Bengaluru. With over 100 attendees representing leading technology companies, financial service providers, telecom operators, government agencies, retailers, and platform providers, the event served as an important forum for advancing phishing-resistant, passwordless authentication efforts in India.
The program began with welcome remarks from FIWG Chair Niharika Arora (Google) and Vice Chair Tapesh Bhatnagar (G+D), followed by a keynote address from FIDO Alliance President Sam Srinivas. Sam’s session offered a forward-looking overview of the global FIDO roadmap, covering recent progress in passkey adoption, certification, and platform interoperability, highlighted by many attendees as one of the most valuable sessions of the day.
Throughout the morning, FIWG member organizations shared implementation case studies drawn from real-world deployments. Christopher Clement Soris of Zoho Corporation presented lessons from integrating passkeys into enterprise workflows, emphasizing developer enablement and user trust. Vishu Gupta, Piyush Ranjan, and Deepak Singal of Times Internet shared insights into their journey deploying passkeys across consumer media platforms, with a focus on UX challenges and account recovery design. Shantanu Shirke of Mastercard showcased its Global Financial Framework (GFF) through a live demo of its FIDO-enabled authentication solution, and Simon Trac Do of VinCSS introduced applications of the FIDO Device Onboard (FDO) protocol for secure and scalable onboarding of IoT devices.
The Google Android and Chrome teams, including Niharika Arora, Eiji Kitamura, and Neelansh Sahai, provided updates on platform support for passkeys, highlighting recent enhancements to Android APIs, Chrome UX flows, and best practices for relying parties. These updates offered implementers concrete guidance on leveraging native OS features to enable seamless, secure sign-ins.
The event concluded with a panel discussion titled “Modern Authentication Meets Legacy Systems,” moderated by Niharika Arora and featuring Amit Mathur (Ensurity), Rooparsh Kalia (Mercari), Rahul Dani (Yubico), Tom Sheffield (Target), and Sam Srinivas (Google). The discussion addressed practical challenges in deploying FIDO-based authentication in environments with legacy infrastructure, including backward compatibility, account recovery, and risk trade-offs. Panelists shared candid reflections and emphasized the importance of phased integration strategies and cross-industry collaboration.
Compared to the 2024 edition, this year’s workshop reflected a clear evolution, from awareness-building to implementation maturity. While last year’s focus was largely on introducing the promise of passkeys and FIDO standards, the 2025 program emphasized operational insights, technical execution, and collaborative solutions.
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Through post-event surveys, participants expressed strong appreciation for the event’s practical focus, noting the value of detailed case studies, direct access to platform teams, and the opportunity to connect with peers tackling similar challenges. Many described the in-person format as especially effective for fostering shared understanding and building momentum.
As passkey adoption continues to accelerate across India, the India Working Group remains a vital platform for aligning implementation efforts, exchanging knowledge, and enabling long-term deployment success. Sincere thanks to all speakers, panelists, and attendees for their contributions, and to Google for hosting us in Bengaluru. We look forward to continuing this important work together throughout 2025 and beyond.
*Read last year’s recap: 2024 FIDO Alliance India Working Group Meetup and Workshop
