Facebook is rolling out support for passkeys on both iOS and Android, the social network announced on Wednesday.
Passkey logins make it harder for bad actors to remotely access your accounts because they require physical access to your phone. Unlike standard logins, passkeys use Face ID or Touch ID, a PIN, or a physical security authentication key to validate logins.
Passkeys remove the need to rely on username and password combinations, which can be susceptible to phishing and other issues.
Facebook says that passkeys will also start rolling out to Messenger in the coming months, and that users will be able to use the same passkey for both services.
Passkeys can also be used to autofill payment information when making purchases using Meta Pay, Facebook says.
To set up a passkey, you’ll navigate to the new “passkey” option in Accounts Center within the Settings menu on Facebook. Once it’s set up, you can start using your passkey to log in to Facebook on your phone. You’ll still be able to use other authentication methods, such as your password, to access your account so that you can still access the social network when using a device that doesn’t support passkeys.
Facebook is one of many tech companies to introduce passkey support in the past year or so. Other big names that have done so include Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, PayPal, TikTok, WhatsApp, X, and GitHub.
