1Password plans to support passkeys, the latest and most important biometric login standard, from "early 2023", in an attempt to remove Apple's current dominance of the technology. So says Steve Won, the company's chief product officer for password management. In an informative video published on the company's website, he reminded that access keys created on Apple devices are essentially tied to the Apple ecosystem and are particularly difficult to verify on devices that cannot access them, such as televisions.

Therefore, the company claims that 1Password will become the world's first mobile password authenticator and continue to support and store traditional passwords that users will likely need until passwords become the norm.

What are access keys?

Although 1Password wants users to have full control of their passwords and provides access to a wide range of devices such as Android phones, the technology is very advanced, has not yet penetrated the general public and is not yet supported by most online services. But as with all technologies, this is bound to change over time. In essence, passkeys make it possible to abandon the idea of passwords, which give rise to a number of security problems. Passkeys are sets of cryptographic keys that are verified using biometric data such as fingerprints or facial recognition.

Although passwords can be stored and accessed on any device, they leave much to be desired in terms of usability and security. Long, complex strings of letters and numbers are secure but difficult to remember, so much so that many less tech-savvy users use a single password for all services requiring a login. The consequences of this choice are enormous: a single service can put an impressive amount of sensitive user information at risk if it is compromised. 1Password's plan to make passwords an open ecosystem is a good start to publicist this technology and encourage online services to support it and gradually make it the only authentication option available.

The unveiling of 1Password came on the heels of Google's announcement (opens in a new tab) in October that support for access keys in Android and Google Chrome had entered beta. Two companies working towards the same goal of an open access key ecosystem are making it a reality.