Multiple user authentications on a communications device

Abstract

A communications device provides a biometric reader to authenticate users onto the communications device based on a single biometric input. The communications device maintains a local copy of the strong authentication credentials, such as a user identification and password, and the biometrics which were previously input by users of the communications device. Then, rather than requiring re-entry of the strong authentication credentials to authenticate (or re-authenticate) these users onto the communications device, the communications device is able to authenticate the users based on the input of the appropriate biometric. When a biometric input is received, the communications device identifies the locally stored strong authentication credentials that is associated with the input biometric, and uses the locally stored strong authentication credentials to authenticate the user.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.