By Tom Warren , a senior editor covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joini

Microsoft launches passkey support for all consumer accounts

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2024-05-02 16:30:05

By Tom Warren , a senior editor covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.

Microsoft is fully rolling out passkey support for all consumer accounts today. After enabling them in Windows 11 last year, Microsoft account owners can also now generate passkeys across Windows, Android, and iOS. This makes it effortless to sign in to a Microsoft account without having to type a password in every time.

You can create passkeys for your Microsoft account by following this link, and you can choose your face, fingerprint, PIN, or a security key to use a device to sign in with a passkey.

Passkeys can replace traditional passwords with your device’s own authentication methods. That way, you can sign in to Gmail, PayPal, or iCloud just by activating Face ID on your iPhone, your Android phone’s fingerprint sensor, or with Windows Hello on a PC.

Built on WebAuthn (or Web Authentication) tech, two different keys are generated when you create a passkey: one stored by the website or service where your account is and a private key stored on the device you use to verify your identity.