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Biometric Authentication on remote devices

Important: This feature is available only under Team Pro and Enterprise Pro plans. For more details, check out our pricing page.

Biometric authentication is a process of enhancing security of applications by using biological or behavioral attributes of individuals to verify their identity. Examples of biometric authentication include fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, DNA matching, retina scanning, etc.

App Live enables you to test your apps that require biometric authentication, by using the Biometric Authentication setting on select remote BrowserStack devices.

Note: You can enable the Biometric Authentication, Image Injection, and Device Passcode settings together in the same test session on App Live.

In this guide, you learn about:

Supported devices and apps

App Live supports Biometric Authentication on the following devices:

  • Android: Devices running Android OS 6 and higher.
  • iOS: Devices running iOS 13 and higher.

The devices that do not support testing with Biometric Authentication appear grayed out in the device listing on the App Live dashboard.

App Live supports testing of the following types of apps using Biometric Authentication:

Note: Effective 30th December 2024, we have enhanced the functioning of the biometric authentication feature to support testing scenarios around failing authentication multiple times. To test such scenarios, we recommend uploading your apps again.

Enable Biometric Authentication setting for your app

Important: App Live does not support testing of apps that use code obfuscation tools like Proguard, using Biometric Authentication. Ensure that you disable obfuscation before uploading your app on App Live.

To enable Biometric Authentication:

  1. Log in to the App Live dashboard.
  2. On the App Live dashboard, upload your app from the left panel.
  3. After your app is uploaded, click the configuration icon next to the file name of your app. Configuration icon
  4. Under App Configurations, enable Biometric Authentication. Biometric Authentication toggle on
  5. Select your device from the list of available devices in the device listing on the right panel, to launch your test session.
Important: To test your app using Biometric Authentication, ensure that you disable the iOS Entitlements setting under App Configurations. App Live does not support testing of iOS apps with both the iOS Entitlements and Biometric Authentication settings enabled.

To enable Biometric Authentication:

  1. Log in to the App Live dashboard.
  2. On the App Live dashboard, upload your app from the left panel.
  3. After your app is uploaded, click the configuration icon next to the file name of your app. Configuration icon
  4. Under App Configurations, enable Biometric Authentication. Biometric Authentication toggle on
  5. Select your device from the list of available devices in the device listing on the right panel, to launch your test session.

Your setup session takes up to 60 seconds to complete.

Test your app using Biometric Authentication

Prerequisite:
Enable Biometric Authentication setting for your app.

To test your app:

  1. In your app, trigger the biometric authentication workflow.
  2. On the Biometric Authentication prompt, click Pass, Fail, or Cancel to test authentication success or failure scenarios. BrowserStack App Live attempts to closely mimic the biometric authentication behaviour on real devices. Based on your platform, refer to this table to understand the behaviour:
Scenario Action Behaviour
Pass biometric authentication To pass biometric authentication, click Pass on the pop-up. The biometric authentication is passed and the app behaves as designed.
Fail biometric authentication On real Android devices, biometric authentication fails after five incorrect/unsuccessful attempts. Hence, on BrowserStack Android devices, click Fail five times to actually fail biometric authentication. The biometric authentication is considered failed and
- if you do not have a fallback defined, you should see the error code, ERROR_LOCKOUT. Also, you will not experience the 30-sec wait period like on real Android devices.

- if you have a fallback defined in your app, BrowserStack App Live displays another pop-up to simulate device passcode. This pop-up can be closed by clicking either Pass or Cancel.
Device Passcode Pass or Fail

Note: On real devices running Android above version 15, the device locks itself after five failures. However, in such cases, on BrowserStack devices, biometric authentication will directly get cancelled with the ERROR_LOCKOUT error code.

Similarly, for devices running Android versions lower than 10, since Android does not offer a default fallback mechanism, the device passcode screen is not displayed.
Cancel biometric authentication To cancel biometric authentication, click Cancel on the pop-up. When you click Cancel on BrowserStack devices, biometric authentication is cancelled and the BIOMETRIC_ERROR_USER_CANCELED error code is sent.
If you have defined custom logic for cancellation after a certain number of failures, biometric authentication is cancelled and the BIOMETRIC_ERROR_CANCELED error code is sent.

Authentication Pass or Fail

Scenario Action Behaviour
Pass biometric authentication To pass biometric authentication, click Pass on the pop-up. The biometric authentication is passed and the app behaves as designed.
Fail biometric authentication To fail biometric authentication, click Fail on the pop-up. The biometric authentication is failed and the app behaves as designed.
Cancel biometric authentication To cancel biometric authentication, click Cancel on the pop-up. The biometric authentication is cancelled and the app behaves as designed.

Authentication Pass or Fail

Note: On iOS, if the Biometric Authentication prompt does not show up and the test passes automatically, then contact our Support team.

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