Corporate Overview
JCOM Co., Ltd. (J:COM) provides a wide range of services to 5.72 million households nationwide, including cable TV (specialty channels, BS, terrestrial digital), high-speed internet connection, smartphones, fixed-line phones, electricity, video entertainment, and home IoT.
Under the brand message “Making the new normal,” J:COM actively incorporates digital technology to offer new services that make customers’ lives more comfortable and enriched.
To ensure the safe and comfortable use of the various services provided by J:COM, customers need to register a J:COM Personal ID (phone number or email address), which is linked to multiple services and apps offered by the company. Since August 2019, J:COM has been considering a new J:COM Personal ID, aiming to follow the latest security measures while continuously and swiftly pursuing the convenience of easy ID registration and login, which are often contradictory goals.
Deployment of FIDO2
Previously, in addition to ID/password authentication, J:COM adopted multi-factor authentication by sending one-time passwords to phone numbers.
However, aiming for further convenience, J:COM decided to introduce passwordless authentication using biometric authentication available on customers’ everyday devices (smartphones, tablets).
For the implementation, J:COM used the FIDO-compliant authentication platform “Uni-ID Libra” provided by NRI Secure Technologies, Ltd. (NRI Secure).
Initially, there were challenges in guiding users through the initial setup of FIDO authentication due to differences in operation depending on the OS and browser specifications used by the users, such as fingerprint and facial recognition. However, these issues were resolved by improving screen displays and support site descriptions.
Effects of Implementation
As of August 29, 2024, the number of passkey (FIDO credentials) registrations has reached 16% of the total IDs, and the number of services that can use biometric authentication has reached 25. This implementation has not only improved convenience but also resulted in cost savings on SMS transmission fees, as the cost remained flat despite the increase in the number of users and authentications for the services provided by J:COM.
Passkey (FIDO credentials) registrations has reached 16% of the total IDs
Shiori Takagi from the Agile Development Department, IT Planning Promotion Division, Information Systems Department of JCOM Co., Ltd., commented on this case study:
“With the introduction of FIDO authentication, we believe we have made significant progress towards our goal of enabling customers to log in and use services more securely and easily. We believe that registration will expand further and service usage will be promoted in the future.”
