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1Password plans to support passkeys, the latest and greatest biometric login standard, from “early 2023,” in an effort to take the technology’s current perceived dominance away from Apple.
So says Steve Won, the company’s chief product officer for password management. In an informative video issued (opens in new tab) on the company’s website mentioned that access keys created on Apple devices are essentially tied into Apple’s ecosystem and are especially hard to verify on devices that can’t access them, such as televisions.
To that end, the company claims that 1Password will become the world’s first mobile passkey authenticator, while continuing to support and store the legacy passwords that users are likely to need until passkeys become the norm.
What are access keys?
While 1Password wants users to have complete control over their passwords and provide access on a plethora of devices such as Android phones, the technology is very progressive, has yet to penetrate the greater public awareness and has yet to be supported by most online services. However, as with all technology, this will change over time.
Essentially, passkeys do away with the idea of passwords, which pose a number of security concerns. Passkeys are sets of cryptographic keys verified by biometric data such as fingerprints or facial recognition.
While passwords can be saved and accessed on any device, they leave a lot to be desired in terms of ease of use and security. Long and complex strings of letters and numbers are secure, but hard to remember, leading many less tech-savvy users to rely on one simple password for every service that requires a login.
The implications of this are enormous: one service compromised can put a staggering amount of a user’s sensitive information at risk.
1Password’s plan to turn password keys into an open ecosystem is a great start to raising awareness of the technology and encouraging online services to support it first and gradually make it the only authentication option available.
1Password’s revelation came on the heels of Google’s Announcement (opens in new tab) by October, that support for passkeys in Android and Google Chrome had entered beta. Two companies working towards the same goal of an open access key ecosystem are almost making it a reality.
As a result, it should be a matter of time before passkeys are supported by even more password managers and online services, and as a fact of life online.