[Huawei Developers] Vivi Jiang:
Nowadays, it's common for an app developer to develop multiple apps across different platforms. However, an issue that arises is that when signing in to different apps or the same app across different platforms on the same device, users usually needs to repeatedly enter their account name and password even if the same account is used, which has a negative impact on user experience. HMS Core Keyring can help developers solve this problem effectively.

Keyring Capabilities​

Keyring provides developers with the ability to manage user credentials throughout the credential lifecycle, including obtaining, encrypting, storing, authorizing, sharing, querying, accessing, and deleting credentials. These capabilities help developers provide a smooth sign-in experience for their users.

Encrypted storage on user devices

Keyring encrypts user credentials using a randomly generated key in the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). The key varies depending on the device and can only be used in the TEE. Huawei does not have access to the content of the key. All these measures ensure that user credentials are securely stored on user devices. When storing credentials, developers can also choose to require the user to provide biometric information or enter their lock screen password when an app tries to access the stored credentials.

Credential sharing

Keyring allows users to share their credentials across different Android apps, quick apps, and web apps made by the same developer. When a user signs in to an app, the app searches for available credentials in Keyring. The available credentials may be stored by the app or shared by other apps with the app.

Data security

To ensure data security, Keyring can verify the identity of an Android app by its APK name, verify the identity of a quick app by its package name and certificate hash value, and verify the identity of a web app by its URL, thus effectively preventing user credentials from being stolen by spoof apps and ensuring the security of credential sharing.

Credential deletion and update

Keyring provides developers with APIs for deleting and updating credentials. After the user signs out of an app account, the account credential will be deleted from Keyring.

Privacy Experience​

As for privacy, Keyring complies with various privacy policies and ensures that user experience is not affected.

Firstly, Keyring only stores and shares users' credentials on their devices, and does not upload the credentials to the Huawei cloud server. Therefore, users are the sole data controller of their credentials. Huawei will not actively perform any actions that affect the security of user credentials, such as modifying or deleting them. Secondly, Keyring's privacy statement has been incorporated into the Statement About HMS Core and Privacy. Therefore, your app does not need to separately notify users about Keyring's privacy policies. You can visit our official website to view success stories from developers who have used Keyring to provide users with an excellent cross-app and cross-platform sign-in experience.

Application Scenarios​

Cross-Platform Sign-In

Developers are increasingly releasing their apps on various different platforms. However, when users use an app on a different platform, they find themselves having to enter their sign-in information each time they want to sign in. Keyring provides apps on different platforms with corresponding APIs, including the Keyring SDK, quick app APIs, and web APIs, thus supporting credential sharing between apps across different platforms.

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Take a shopping app as an example. Sending promotional messages to users during special events and national holidays is one of the most common marketing strategies and is also popular with users. A user signs in to the Android version of the shopping app and then receives a promotional message for a particular product. The user then taps the link in the message to open the web version of the app in HUAWEI Browser. Keyring automatically signs the user in, after which the user is free to start shopping.

Cross-App Sign-In

As developers mature and grow, most will end up developing multiple apps. However, it's not easy to acquire users for a new app. Once a developer releases a new app, Keyring serves as a bridge that efficiently connects users of the developer's existing apps to the new app. Thanks to this, users can seamlessly sign in to the new app with a single tap, without having to re-enter their account names and passwords.

Put simply, when a user signs in to existing app A and then installs new app B made by the same developer, the user can directly sign in to app B using the credentials saved by app A, without needing to enter their account name and password again.

Account Change

Keyring can store multiple credentials from the same user in an app. The app can provide a confirmation screen so that users can choose which account to sign in with, facilitating account change. In addition, developers can ask users to provide their biometric information or enter their lock screen passwords before they sign in, which effectively prevents security risks such as account spoofing.

Business Values​

Keyring's cross-app sign-in functionality allows multiple apps made by the same developer to share users with each other, helping developers quickly boost the user base of their app. In addition, Keyring also allows developers to share users between their Android apps, quick apps, and web apps. By creating a seamless sign-in experience across different apps and platforms, Keyring helps developers simplify the sign-in process to shorten the user conversion path and improve the user conversion rate. Put simply, Keyring is a powerful tool that can help developers achieve business success.

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Keyring's core features of providing smooth sign-in, data security, and user sharing are ideal for every type of app, whether it be shopping, travel, social media, or reading. In the future, Keyring will continue to add new features to its repertoire as HMS Core expands its security-related capabilities, and provide even more cutting-edge services for developers.

To learn more, please visit:

>> HUAWEI Developers official website

>> Development Guide

>> Reddit to join developer discussions

>> GitHub to download the sample code

>> Stack Overflow to solve integration problems

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