what are these “passkeys” that Big Tech is pushing on people, and what to do if someone steals your phone and laptop?

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I’ve avoided “passkeys” like the plague, but with Google [promising a password-less future](https://safety.google/authentication/passkey/) and Apple [forcefully moving people to passkeys going forward](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/10125/?time=258), I guess it’s time to figure out what they are.

I consider myself a tech person, but the more I hear about these *passkeys*, the less I understand. Apple’s [overview](https://developer.apple.com/passkeys/) says that they’ll be used “alongside” passwords, so I don’t get what’s being **replaced**, and why the hell we need them. Fido Alliance (the folks that apparently invented the damn thing) says that [passwords are a problem](https://fidoalliance.org/passkeys/), but reading this, it doesn’t seem like it’s **my** problem they talk about.

What I **do** understand though, is that one day I’ve had someone walk into my hotel room in Poland, and walk out with my laptop and cell phone while I was asleep^1.

**So, overnight, I ended up without access to any of my devices or phone number abroad**.

Luckily, because I was still in the password-ful past, I could log into my email and Skype from hotel’s computer, and let my wife know that I need some help.

what this scenario wood look like in the future when everything gets switched to passkeys.

____
^(**[1]:**) ^(I have forgotten to lock the door – learn from my mistake. To Krakow police’s credit, they *actually caught the thief* several months later.)

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Do passkeys consider that I may want to have someone else log into my account remotely, far away from my passkeys and devices?

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