Easy Identity Management and Enhanced Security in Account Linking

Users in this era are experiencing inconvenient usability problems while signing in and out of their multiple devices and services. Also, an unpleasant leak of personal information has become another inconvenience and threat that users cannot avoid while managing them. In this environment, usability and security become more important, however these two work in the trade-off relationship so that it requires a new UX solution. In this paper, with Account linking, we suggest improving usability while enhancing security by connecting key account and service accounts permanently. Account linking shortens the steps of sign-in so that it releases users from the burden of remembering multiple IDs and passwords by integrating key account and service account. Its benefit will be maximized when using a shared device where users need to sign in not only the device but also individual services one by one. In addition, it blocks the hazard of personal data leak as it enables signing out all services at once and prevents data remaining on a shared device. Likewise, Account linking is expected to enhance usability and security on multi-device, and multi-user environments.