Amazon announced that it is rolling out passkey support on Web browsers and its mobile apps to help customers securely sign in to their Amazon accounts. The e-commerce giant follows several other tech firms in bringing passkeys to its apps in recent times. WhatsApp, Google, and Microsoft Windows have all added passkey support for their products this year. With Amazon now rolling out the feature, customers won’t have to use their unique passwords to access their accounts.
The e-commerce site announced Monday that passkey support was now available for all Amazon customers using browsers to access the site. The security feature will begin rolling out soon for the Amazon app on iOS and will be added later to the shopping app on Android.
According to Amazon, customers can set up passkeys in Amazon settings and use the face or fingerprint recognition on their device, or the device PIN to access their Amazon accounts securely. “This is about giving customers ease-of-use and security simultaneously in their Amazon experience,” Dave Treadwell, senior vice president of e-commerce at Amazon, was quoted as saying in the announcement. Amazon confirmed that account passwords were not going away, and passkeys will only serve as an alternative way for account authentication.
How to set up passkeys on Amazon
Amazon has listed out a step-by-step process for enrolling for passkeys. Users can head to the Amazon website on a Web browser or open the iOS Amazon app with the passkey update, select Your Account, chose Login &Security, and select the Set up option next to Passkeys. Users can follow the instructions and add a passkey to their account, after which they can sign in on the supported device using biometric authentication like face or fingerprint, or the device lockscreen PIN.
Passkeys have recently become a popular, safe and quick alternative to password-based account authentication. Unlike a password, users don’t have to remember or write down a passkey and thus cannot be accidentally shared or guessed. Last week, popular messaging app WhatsApp rolled out support for passkeys on Android devices.
In June, Microsoft said it would add support for passkeys on Windows 11, letting users seamlessly sign in to a site or application using their face, fingerprint, or a PIN. Google, too, began rolling out passkey support earlier this year.
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