Revolutionize Your Amazon Experience: Sign in Faster and Safer with Passkeys

Amazon is pioneering the use of passkey sign-in among major retailers. Instead of remembering a password, users can now easily save a passkey directly to their devices for convenient access to the Amazon website. However, it is worth mentioning that Amazon's passkey implementation may still have some room for improvement, as their apps currently do not support passkey sign-in.

Passkeys provide a secure and user-friendly alternative to traditional passwords. By saving passkeys to devices, users no longer need to commit them to memory. Passkey entry can be triggered by entering a PIN, utilizing Face ID, or scanning a fingerprint. Additionally, unauthorized access to passkey-protected accounts would require physical access to the user's phone or computer, making them more secure. To enable passkey sign-in on Amazon, navigate to the Your Account page on the desktop website and select the "Login & security" card. Under the phone number section, users will find the option to add a passkey to their account. Amazon will automatically generate a passkey that can be saved to Windows Hello, iCloud Keychain, or any third-party passkey manager, such as 1Password.

The presence of passkeys on the Amazon website is promising as it could potentially lead to widespread adoption and pave the way for a future without passwords. However, Amazon's current implementation of passkeys leaves much to be desired. None of their apps, including the Amazon shopping app, support passkey sign-in, and users are still required to enter a 2FA verification code even when using passkeys.

Furthermore, passkeys are limited to specific domains. If a passkey is created for amazon.com, it cannot be used on other Amazon domains, such as the German-language amazon.de. This means that European users who enjoy shopping on various Amazon sites (in search of good prices) would need to create a passkey for each domain or rely on a username and password when visiting different Amazon domains.

Amazon does not require anyone to use passkeys, and users are free to continue signing in with a username and password even after setting up passwordless login. As for Amazon's unique passkey system, it is expected to improve over time. It is worth noting that Amazon has not officially announced passkey support through a press release, blog post, or earnings call, indicating that this feature is still being developed and is in its early stages.