Passwords still common

Slow transition to passkeys

Passkeys are growing slower than expected but FIDO Alliance is still hopeful.

Ove Kaufeldt

Published 5 February 2025 - 17:07

The modern authentication technology with so-called passkeys, which offer secure logins without passwords, has not grown as quickly as the developers at FIDO Alliance had predicted. According to a report published in the publication PC Mag, the organization's CEO, Andrew Shikiar, said they hoped that 25 billion accounts would be protected by passkeys by 2025. However, at the beginning of January, the figure was only 15 billion. Despite the slower growth, he is optimistic about the future of passkeys and believes they will play a crucial role in improving online security.

One of the faster areas to adopt passkeys is the tech sector, where Google has surpassed 800 million generated passkeys and Amazon is at 175 million.

According to Shikiar, one of the reasons passkeys have not gained wider adoption is that the user experience is still not as good as it should be. In the report, he says that "Some companies use names other than 'passkeys,' which can create confusion for users. Others still require two-factor authentication even though passkeys are designed to make it unnecessary."

Additionally, he points out that some operating systems and browsers encourage users to use their own systems for passkeys, which may not work on all of the user's devices. However, the FIDO Alliance is working on a solution to simplify the situation. The organization is developing a technology that will make it easy to transfer generated passkeys between different password managers and systems. The goal is to create a more unified and user-friendly experience, which could significantly increase the adoption of passkeys. In this way, they hope to reduce our reliance on insecure passwords and make the internet a safer place for all users.