Google on Tuesday said that it would begin making passkeys the default way to protect your accounts, taking another step away from using passwords as the primary form of protection.
The company has begun prompting users to create and use passkeys, which are more secure forms of identification like your fingerprint, face or pin, and are often much faster to use than traditional passwords. It also gets away from the jumble of letters and numbers you need to remember for each account (assuming you’re using a different password for each account, right?).
The change represents just the latest step that the technology industry to taking to ultimately get rid of passwords, which can easily be guessed or exposed in a data breach (Find out what to do if you’re a victim of a data breach here). In comparison, passkeys use a different, more stringent form of cryptography, making them harder to crack.
Google is still offering people the ability to use a password if they’re not comfortable sharing info like their fingerprint or face. They just need to opt out by turning off the “Skip password when possible” option.
Google noted that Uber, eBay and other companies have embraced passkeys, with WhatsApp embracing it soon as well.
“We’ll continue encouraging the industry to make the pivot to passkeys — making passwords a rarity, and eventually obsolete,” the company said in a blog post.