We’ve been talking about Passkey and a password-less future for a while now.. So much so that in fact we are no longer talking about the future, but about the present, with an advance that significantly changes, for the better, from the point of view of the security of ordinary users. And no matter how hard we’ve tried (and still try) to make users aware of the importance of using secure passwords, and despite the proliferation of cross-platform tools that facilitate their use, year after year we still see great hits like “ 1234′, ‘abcd’, ‘password’ and other equally insecure choices are still popular choices for many users.

Recognizing this problem and the fact that even the use of strong passwords does not offer the level of security needed today, when cybercrime has already reached a level of professionalism fully comparable to its counterpart, World Wide Web Consortium and FIDO Alliance They have spent quite a bit of time working on a more secure system. Fortunately, big tech companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft have joined the bill.

So we found out a few months ago Google has already started deploying Passkey as an alternative to passwords. I can personally say that I started using it at that time and that since then I have always found it a more secure option for logging into various services than traditional passwords. Much more recently, Microsoft began to introduce this feature, offering the long-awaited Windows 11 without passwords.

Today there is further progress in this sense because, as we can read in his blog The Keyword, Google Accounts already use a passkey as an authentication system by default. Of course, this does not mean that it will no longer be possible to use the passwords we used until now, but it means that Google will prioritize this method of authentication and will push its users to switch to it.

To this end, we can read the following in the mentioned publication:

«This means that the next time you log into your account, you’ll be prompted to create and use access keys to make future logins easier. It also means that you’ll see Bypass Password enabled when possible in your Google Account settings.

To use passcodes, just use your fingerprint, face scan or PIN to unlock your device. They are 40% faster than passwords and rely on a type of cryptography that makes them more secure.»

Google also answers, albeit without a date, one of the questions many people will be asking: When will you consider the transition complete and therefore do without passwords? As I say, they’re not giving a date, but they do realize that this type of process can be quite slow, so it doesn’t seem like they have a prognosis on that at this point. However, if you have the option, now is a good time to start migrating in that direction.