Known Issue: Android 10 Samsung A10 Biometric Authentication

As communicated in MC230744, we wanted to inform you of a known issue with the Android 10 Samsung A10 biometric authorization in case you run into it. Launching any apps with App Protection Policies (APP, also known as MAM) on an Android 10 Samsung A10 with biometric authorization enabled (face recognition/thumbprint) will cause the device to crash. This issue has already been filed with Google and Samsung but we have not seen resolution. Due to this, in January's Company Portal release, we will be disabling biometric authentication on impacted devices and these devices will use a PIN instead.

To work around this issue, you can create/edit your Android APP policies to Block for device biometrics settings and set this policy for an assigned group for Android 10 Samsung A10 users.

Screenshot displaying blocking biometric authentication

Note: Biometric authentication will work to unlock the device.

We'll keep this post updated as we receive additional information.

If you have any questions, just let us know though comments on this post, or tagging @IntuneSuppTeam on Twitter.

Blog updates:

6/1/21: Biometric authentication remains to be disabled on all Android 10 Samsung A10 devices and a PIN is required to authenticate MAM apps. We'll keep this post updated as we receive additional information.