Passkeys are seen as robust and user-friendly solution for authentication, presenting an alternative to conventional passwords. They utilize device biometrics like fingerprints and facial recognition, or even a PIN or pattern, ensuring a heightened level of security. Passkeys, grounded in the FIDO standards, function as asymmetric key pairs intimately linked to both a user account and a designated website or application.

It is imperative to note that the successful integration of passkeys hinges on the intricate balance between technological capabilities and browser support. Development teams are faced with multifaceted considerations, spanning from the potential enhancements to user experience and the challenges of actual implementation to the strategic rollout of passkey systems.

Passkeys are a welcoming departure from traditional password paradigms, but grappling with the browser dilemma remains paramount. It's obvious development and user experience, or UX, teams need help to understand, plan and optimize different end user authentication experiences.

“Driving passkey adoption is a critical goal for the FIDO Alliance,” said Andrew Shikiar (News - Alert), Executive Director and CMO of the FIDO Alliance. “Over the past year, we have published research-backed UX guidelines to support consumer deployments and best practice deployment papers to enable enterprise utilization.”

Stepping up to the challenge to provide in-depth insight, ultimately driving passkey adoption, is Beyond Identity with the launch of The Passkey Journey, a free, GDPR-compliant tool.

Beyond Identity is a provider of a suite of passwordless, phishing-resistant and Zero Trust Authentication solutions that improves security and user experience.

The Passkey Journey provides a short JavaScript snippet that, when integrated into a website, analyzes visitors’ browsers and devices to determine WebAuthn support and provides a dynamic report of the user base's ability to use passkeys. Developers, product managers, UX designers and product security engineers now have access to a detailed breakdown of the percentage of website visitors that can use passkeys with biometrics, with only security keys, or cannot use passkeys at all.

Additionally, the report shows clickable UX flows to provide context for each UX scenario. The report also provides deployment recommendations to optimize the rollout of passkeys, close the technical gap and enable more users to use passkeys.

“Passkeys present a pivotal moment in authentication. But with platforms quickly evolving, development teams face the challenge of solving for inconsistent user experiences across browsers and devices,” said Jasson Casey, chief technology officer of Beyond Identity. “We’re presenting a simple tool that can help teams quickly understand their users’ ability to use passkeys for authentication and make informed decisions around deployment.”

The Passkey Journey equips development and UX teams with a transformative, free tool. By enhancing understanding of WebAuthn support variations, it accelerates passkey design, enables accurate UX impact projection, and facilitates confident, swift integration.

“Beyond Identity has been a valuable contributor to FIDO Alliance’s efforts to resolve deployment challenges for companies looking to support passkeys,” said Shikiar. “The Passkey Journey is a valuable development tool that stands to help enterprises make informed decisions on their passkey deployments.”