TikTok is introducing iPhone passkey support

By Umar Shakir, a news writer fond of the electric vehicle lifestyle and things that plug in via USB-C. He spent over 15 years in IT support before joining The Verge.

The next TikTok trend is passkeys on iPhones. The social media app is announcing support for the logins that try to make password-stealing phishing attacks impossible by allowing users to sign in with either Touch ID or Face ID instead of entering passwords. The initial launch includes iOS device support and uses Apple’s native implementation of passkeys that saves them to the iCloud Keychain so that once it’s set up, it will also work on your other Apple devices.

Once the feature is available, TikTok users can enable a passkey for their account by going to the app’s settings and selecting the new passkey menu item. Then users can follow a couple of steps: tap Set up, hit Continue on the iOS system prompt to save a passkey, and you're done!

The system keeps the biometric data used by passkeys on-device, so even TikTok won’t be able to access your fingerprint and Face ID data if you use them to log in.

Passkeys can replace traditional passwords with your device’s own authentication methods. That way, you can sign in to Gmail, PayPal, or iCloud just by activating Face ID on your iPhone, your Android phone’s fingerprint sensor, or with Windows Hello on a PC.

Built on WebAuthn (or Web Authentication) tech, two different keys are generated when you create a passkey: one stored by the website or service where your account is and a private key stored on the device you use to verify your identity.

Of course, if passkeys are stored on your device, what happens if it gets broken or lost? Since passkeys work across multiple devices, you may have a backup available. Many services that support passkeys will also reauthenticate to your phone number or email address, or to a hardware security key if you have one.

Meanwhile, other services like Gmail won’t let you completely remove the password from your account yet, just in case. Apple and Google’s password vaults already support them, and so do password managers like 1Password and Dashlane. 1Password has also created an online directory listing services that allow users to sign in using a passkey.

TikTok isn’t adding passkey support for Android and other devices just yet but will expand to other operating systems “over time.” And you might have to wait a bit if you’re in the US, as the company is only rolling out the feature starting in Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America this month.

Passkeys are slowly making their way onto multiple apps and platforms. Most recently, Microsoft has begun testing passkeys in Windows 11, and Apple’s iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma betas let you use them to secure your iCloud account as well. Other notable recent passkey implementers include GitHub, 1Password, and Google Workspace.

TikTok adds that they have joined the FIDO Alliance, the organization behind the development of passkeys. The big tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Apple, joined FIDO Alliance to work together on implementing and assisting the development of cross-platform accessible secure logins using cryptographic authentication, which forms the basis of passkeys.

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