A Preliminary Investigation of Authentication of Choice in Health-Related Mobile Applications

User authentication is a security measure that involves authenticating the identity claimed by a user before granting access to a system or an application. Even though there are numerous studies that examined users’ experiences with a variety of authentication methods, very few have focused on the approach of granting users the freedom to select one or more authentication methods of their own choice. Initial work in this area suggested that the ‘Authentication of Choice” (AoC) approach has the potential to serve as a usable and secure authentication solution on mobile devices. However, the studies only evaluated the AoC approach on the Android platform when users executed tasks with low security and privacy concerns. To address this gap, we investigated the ‘Authentication of Choice’ approach in mobile health apps that potentially involve more sensitive information. An online longitudinal study was conducted with 30 participants to assess three authentication processes. The result of the study provides insight into how users interact with and perceive the AoC approach in the context of mobile health apps.