B-FY (formerly Biocryptology)

The challenge

B-FY (then Biocryptology) was building an identity and biometrics solution aimed at reducing fraud and protecting user privacy. They needed senior iOS support for a critical app rewrite: migrating a legacy Objective-C codebase to modern Swift, hardening the app's security, integrating a proprietary hardware token via Bluetooth at a low level (no intermediate SDK), and incorporating facial recognition and identity document validation at a time when the SDKs involved were in early stages with limited documentation. The team worked in Scrum and needed an iOS profile with technical autonomy, the ability to lead the iOS side of the product, and direct coordination with the hardware team.

The solution

AtalayaSoft assigned Francisco José García Navarro to the B-FY team as lead iOS senior engineer, where he led the iOS app's technical transformation for over two years. He worked in Scrum, with iterative delivery and direct coordination with the hardware team. His role covered three parallel fronts:

1. iOS architecture modernisation

As a senior iOS reinforcement embedded in the team, Francisco led the app's critical rewrite:

• Progressive Objective-C to Swift refactor, keeping the app in production throughout the transition, leveraging Swift's type system and eliminating entire classes of bugs typical of the Objective-C runtime.
• End-to-end app hardening: credential storage in Keychain Services, certificate validation, protection against insecure traffic, and review of the typical attack surfaces in an identity app.
• Secure architecture aligned with industry standards for digital identity solutions.

2. Identity layer: hardware and biometrics

The product required integrating two critical elements into the passwordless authentication flow:

• Proprietary hardware token via native Bluetooth: implementation of the communication layer with the token using Core Bluetooth, without an intermediate SDK, coordinating directly with the hardware team.
• Third-party biometrics SDK: facial recognition and identity document validation (national ID, passport) within the authentication flow.

Both integrations were carried out in early product stages, which translates into the featured technical achievements detailed below.

3. iOS technical leadership and team support

Beyond development, Francisco took on technical leadership responsibilities on the iOS side of the product:

• Systematic code reviews and support to the team on technical decisions.
• Iterative delivery in Scrum, with direct coordination with the hardware team.
• Participation in the technical selection and onboarding of an additional iOS engineer to the team.

Featured technical achievements

Low-level native Bluetooth integration, with no intermediate SDK

Implementation of the communication layer with B-FY's proprietary hardware token using Core Bluetooth (Apple's native framework for Bluetooth Low Energy, BLE, communication), without an intermediate SDK and coordinating directly with the hardware team. Scope included device discovery, pairing, session management, encrypted data exchange with the token, and handling the typical BLE connection states (drops, reconnections, background modes). Working at this level without an SDK abstraction required defining the hardware communication protocol in parallel to its own development.

Early-stage biometric SDK integration with limited documentation

Integration of the third-party SDK for facial recognition and identity document validation happened when the SDK itself was at an early stage with limited documentation (that is, before the vendor had published stable guides, documented use cases, or canonical examples). This required reverse-engineering the SDK's behaviour and empirical validation of every step of the flow: camera lifecycle management, iOS privacy permissions, frame delivery to the SDK, and translating its outputs back into B-FY's authentication logic.