1Password acquires Passage to help bring passwordless authentication to everyone

Today, I’m thrilled to welcome the Passage team to 1Password. Together, we’re ushering in the next chapter in our journey toward secure and simple sign-ins for everyone.

When I look at the growing interest in passkeys, I can’t help asking myself: what will it take to make passwordless technology flourish? How will 1Password contribute? After all, the underlying technology isn’t new.

What’s changed is an emerging consensus around how to make that technology available to any developer, business, or individual that wants to use it – on any platform or device.

And that’s where Passage comes in.

What is Passage?

The Passage team is dedicated to making it easy for developers and businesses to implement passwordless authentication. Their API allows anyone to build a class-leading sign-in experience that prioritizes device-native biometrics like Touch ID, Face ID, or Windows Hello. No passwords in sight.

Instead of each company having to build its own implementation of passkeys, this approach makes it possible for them to adopt a turnkey solution and offer the easiest and most secure sign-in experience to their customers in less time.

By taking the hassle out of one of the biggest challenges facing companies interested in passkeys, 1Password is ready to play a key role in broadening the adoption of passwordless authentication industry-wide.

We’re thrilled to welcome the Passage team to 1Password, where they’ll continue their work with the support of our growing team alongside them.

What this means for you

Passkeys are a new way of signing in to your favorite apps, websites, and services that doesn’t rely on passwords. They’re more secure than passwords, and they’re also a lot easier to use. With today’s acquisition, we’re aiming to drastically shorten the adoption curve for passkeys so we can bring a seamless, secure, and interoperable passwordless experience to you sooner.

When 1Password joined the FIDO Alliance earlier this year, it was just the beginning of our passwordless journey. But for us, passwordless is really an extension of our overall mission to make security simpler and more convenient for everyone. We’ve been helping individuals and businesses navigate the ever-changing world of authentication for nearly two decades now.

New technologies are always emerging to improve upon the solutions we rely on, but making them available to everyone takes time. By easing the adoption of passkeys, we see a significant opportunity to deliver on our promise of making the secure thing to do the easy thing.

Over the coming months, we’ll be rolling out a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for passwordless authentication, beginning with full support for creating, saving, and using device-agnostic passkeys in 1Password during the first half of 2023.

I can’t wait to share more details – including information about how you can participate in our beta program to help test the functionality. Keep an eye out for updates right here on the blog, or consider signing up to our newsletter so you don’t miss a thing.

Jeff Shiner

CEO