YOLO! No, not you only live once. You only login once. That’s the message password management service Dashlane is trying to send with its new partnership with Google. The pair have announced OpenYOLO, an API source project for developers to access passwords in password management systems.
Unsurprisingly, OpenYOLO will start by targeting Android. However, the two companies hope to include other platforms as well. Eventually, Dashlane says it wants “universal implementation by various apps and password managers across all platforms and operating systems.”
While Dashlane and Google are the founding members of this new partnership, they will also be working with other password management services. According to Dashlane, the likes of 1Password, LastPass, and Keeper all have expressed interest in joining the initiative. There will also likely be other partners as the project moves along and when the code for the project is made public. In fact, the partnership is in such an early stage that it doesn’t even have a website yet.
So what’s the point of developers being able to access passwords stored in password management services? The idea is that the industry needs more centralized password protection, especially considering the number of data breaches that have happened as of late. Current password management services work well enough, but they’re a little slow to respond. If developers are able to build those services straight into their apps, users won’t have to worry about waiting for the system to load and dealing with third parties — everything will just work together.
The first services to integrate with OpenYOLO include the obvious ones — Dashlane and Google’s Smart Lock. With Smart Lock, for example, instead of asking the user to input a credential, a website could automatically see the credentials detected by the system. This should make things far easier, and more people should be willing to use password management systems, essentially making the web safe for everyone.
