WhatsApp on iOS has joined the ‘passwordless’ future by rolling out support for passkeys. Once enabled, you can use iPhone biometrics for login, that is, Face ID or Touch ID (besides the phone’s passcode).

Passkey support comes to the iPhone version a few months after Meta started distributing it to Android WhatsApp users. The platform’s spokesperson Zade Alsawah iOS users will see the app “in the coming weeks”.

Making passkeys secure is the fact that it replaces keystrokes that are associated with passwords. At the heart of passkeys is biometric check. Based on Web Authentication API (WebAuthn), Passkeys are stored on-device rather on a web server. So, nobody can hack a server to get passwords. The password replacement uses Touch ID or Face ID for biometric verification. An app or website you are logging into will need to request your phone to authenticate you. The technology generates unique passkeys for each browser-based service, so there is no fear of overlapping.

To see if you have the feature already, look for the option under Settings > Account > Passkeys.