Passkey Use Cases
Consumer, enterprise, government, and payments use cases can all benefit from implementation of support for passkeys. While Passkey Central documentation currently focuses on the consumer use case, for those interested in other use cases, this page provides an overview of non-consumer use cases with links to other FIDO resources.
Consumers
Large global service providers like Amazon, CVS Health, Google, Nintendo, Intuit, Mercari, and many more now offer FIDO-based sign in with passkeys. The passkey sign-in process delivers more successful, faster, and more secure authentication for the online service and a simpler and more streamlined experience for the user. This means better service delivery, more transaction completion, less account recovery events, and less breach risk.
Refer to the Consumer use cases to discover how FIDO can help your customers sign in faster and more successfully – while protecting them against phishing and credential reuse.
Enterprise
Enterprises still leveraging phishable authentication such as passwords and SMS/one-time codes are moving to FIDO authentication-based sign-in with passkeys.
FIDO authentication reduces phishing risks and eliminates credential reuse. Passkeys help increase productivity, lower costs, and have been proven to improve the speed and ease of authenticating employees, contractors, suppliers, and other professionals both during digital transactions and when users access services.
Though Passkey Central is consumer focused, the FIDO Alliance offers other advisory assets related to Enterprise use cases.
Government
Passkeys can be used for citizen services and government workforce applications for local, state, and federal use cases. Enterprises and governments around the globe are turning to modern authentication solutions featuring FIDO specifications based on public key cryptography to provide more usable and phishing-resistant authentication.
Different government use cases may require different authenticator assurance levels and deployment models. Government deployments may include synchronized passkeys and device-bound passkeys stored on hardware security keys depending on assurance, operational, and policy requirements.
Notably, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), refers to FIDO security keys as the gold standard of MFA.
Other governments have also recognized passkeys as providing the highest level of authentication security, as shown by guidance from the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/passkeys,) the EU Commission (https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/support/news/30496,) and the Austrilian Signals Directorate (https://www.cyber.gov.au/protect-yourself/secure-your-accounts/passkeys.)
Though Passkey Central is consumer focused, the FIDO Alliance offers other advisory assets related to Government use cases.
Payments
Passkeys are generally considered a password replacement at the point of sign-in, but they can also be implemented for additional use cases where security, speed, and convenience are necessary, such as payments.
Though Passkey Central is consumer focused, the FIDO Alliance offers other advisory assets related to Payments use cases.
