YOU’LL NEED THIS

GOOGLE ACCOUNT

A smartphone Time required: One hour

PASSWORDS ARE OLDER THAN YOU THINK. Far from arriving with the first computers, they were first used in ancient times to prove a visitor’s identity and—assuming the password provided was correct—grant them access to a place or sensitive information.

While passwords may be digital these days, not much else has changed. It’s still true that the easiest passwords to remember are the easiest ones to guess or crack, and that if your password should be leaked, it becomes instantly useless.

Unfortunately, many of us opt for the path of least resistance. Rather than thinking of unique passwords for every site, we tend to use the same few words, numbers, and phrases. When one of these leaks online, it’s like dropping a skeleton key on the street: it opens the door not only to the first account for which it was used, but all the others to which it was subsequently applied.

That’s why tech companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft have spent years working on more secure alternatives, mainly biometrics such as fingerprint, facial, and voice recognition. These are much more difficult than passwords to steal and imitate. The latest alternative are passkeys. Here, we explain why and how you should start using them.

–NIK RAWLINSON