Dashlane unpacks its Passkey Power 20 on Biometric Update Podcast

It has not been a quick fight for passkeys. In the theoretical prize fight between passwords – the grizzled old authentication method weary from years of phishing – and cryptographic passkeys secured with biometrics, passwords have managed to hold on through several rounds of punishment. They are, in some respects, the Mike Tyson of authentication tools, in that their familiarity is still enough to make people believe in them, despite their apparent weaknesses.

Nonetheless, their hour grows late. Passkey adoption is progressing, as evidenced by the new Dashlane Passkey Power 20, a ranking of companies pushing passkey adoption globally. The second annual edition of the report sees Amazon topping the list of firms seeing passkey authentication, with 39.9 percent of the total. Second is Intuit, with just 6.3 percent.

Aside from the numbers, the variety of firms on the passkey power list is not what some might expect, especially further down, where retail powerhouses like Target, Home Depot and Lowe’s appear next to crypto and payments firms.

“Any time you have an account, especially if you have an e-commerce site, where’s the friction with your user wanting to purchase something? The friction with authentication is passwords.”

Why do passwords keep hanging on? How does adoption take the next step? And why is it a mistake to assume that passkeys are “baked and finished,” rather than an evolving authentication alternative?

In the latest episode of the Biometric Update Podcast, Rew Island, head of product engineering and innovation at Dashlane, addresses some of these questions in the context of the Dashlane Passkey Power 20, and gives us a glimpse of what the end of the fight might look like.

Listen now: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Podbean

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Article Topics

Biometric Update Podcast  |  biometrics  |  Dashlane  |  digital identity  |  passkeys  |  passwordless authentication