Several months after Meta brought WhatsApp passkey logins to Android, it’s doing the same on iOS. The company is rolling out the feature now, and it will be available to all users in the coming weeks.
Passkeys are seen as a more secure login method as (for one thing) it mitigates the risk of scammers convincing users to share their SMS passcode. Instead, you can log in by verifying a passkey using facial recognition, biometrics or a PIN stored on Apple’s passkey manager. Passkeys work by securely storing an authentication credential on your device that pairs with one saved by the service you want to log into.
To turn on passkeys for WhatsApp on iOS, go to the Account section of the app’s Settings, and then tap Passkeys. “Passkey verification will make logging back into WhatsApp easier and more secure. We’re excited to launch this on WhatsApp and give users an added layer of security,” Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp’s head of product, said in a statement.