WhatsApp for iOS is rolling out passwordless logins with passkeys

One more app joins the passwordless future we’ve been promised. WhatsApp says it’s now rolling out support for passkeys in the iOS version of the app. With the feature enabled, users of Meta’s encrypted messaging app can use iPhone biometrics for login — that is, Face ID or Touch ID — or their phone’s passcode.

WhatsApp already supports unlocking its iOS app with one of these options, but this takes that a step further. Passkey support comes to the iPhone version several months after Meta started distributing it to Android WhatsApp users in October. WhatsApp spokesperson Zade Alsawah iOS users will see the app “in the coming weeks,” so if you don’t see it now, keep checking.

Passkeys are supposed to be the secure (or, at least, more secure; even passkeys have tradeoffs) wave of the future — a version of authentication that does away with passwords and SMS two-factor authentication. It also means you can sign in even when you’re not connected to a network since your phone holds the authentication key. To see if you have the feature already, WhatsApp says you’ll see the option under Settings > Account > Passkeys. Rollouts like this can take time, though.

Alsaweh said users will still scan a QR code from the “Linked Devices” menu in the smartphone app to log into WhatsApp on other devices, “since Mac, Windows and web can’t be primary devices for an account.” That’s similar to, if a tiny bit clunkier than, how passkeys sometimes work when logging in to a service on desktop web browsers — except there, all you have to do is scan the passkey QR code using your phone’s default camera app.

Update April 24th, 2024, 6:26PM ET: Added comment from WhatsApp spokesperson.