...So how does it work? Passkeys replace your tired old passwords by creating new digital keys using Touch ID or Face ID, Apples vice president of internet technologies, Darin Adler, explained at WWDC. When you are creating an online account with a website, you can use a Passkey instead of a password. To create a Passkey, just use Touch ID or Face ID to authenticate, and youre done, Adler said...
One word is enough to summarize this proposal: HA!
Attempting to replace passwords with fingerprints && facial recognition is never going to succeed, no matter who tries. There will always be a voiceforous population using the devices that will never consent to using these methods of authentication for privacy or usability reasons (e.g. what happens when you're wearing gloves during winter, or sunglasses), and since
Apple is the one implementing this, it's guarranteed to fail because they never look beyond their own product ecosystem.
Maybe they get a few million people to use it, but nobody is going to be able to not only force websites to implement such an authentication BUT SIMULTANEOUSLY force users to change their passwords at the same time.
Talk about a fighter jet that's blown up before it even takes off...
You want true alternatives to passwords, at least for desktop logins? Then use an adapation of SSH, a proven method of authentication (no-one has ever been able to crack a 4096-bit RSA key yet). Adapt it by putting them on USB sticks, memory cards, and other portable media with a special filesystem. Then when the device is inserted into the computer, the OS automatically sees the private key, and mashes it against the public key and authenticates you.
For added security, use modifications of seed phrases or diceware as a secondary login method, where the user can input 8-12 words words from a fixed bank of 10,000 or so words that users are advised to
write down and store in a safe place like a wallet (yes this will make this login method vulnerable to theft, but it makes the most prevalent method of break-ins - remote brute-forcing - impossible!
)
Last method can be ported to mobile devices, and so can the first one if such a standard is adapted to authenticate using a Bluetooth private key authentication device as well! (Just hold the device anywhere near the lock screen while pressing a certain "Authenticate" button on the key device.)