At any given moment, almost any online account you own can be cracked or stolen right under your nose. No one is fully immune, not even the cautious. From weak passwords and phishing scams to massive data breaches, online security remains a constant arms race.
But while perfect security doesn’t exist, it can always get stronger. And that’s exactly what WhatsApp is trying to do with its latest update.
The company is now rolling out passkey support for encrypted chat backups, joining tech giants like Google, Microsoft, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter) in the global shift toward passwordless authentication. The new feature promises a simpler, far more secure way to restore your chats from the cloud—no passwords, no 64-character keys, and no panic when you switch phones.
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For years, WhatsApp’s strongest privacy shield has been its end-to-end encryption, keeping messages unreadable to anyone except the sender and receiver. But that same protection didn’t always extend to cloud backups. In 2021, WhatsApp introduced encrypted backups, but users still had to remember a password or save a long encryption key. Lose it, and your chat history is gone.
Passkeys finally solve that problem. Instead of relying on something you know (like a password), they rely on something you are, your fingerprint, Face ID, or device PIN. The cryptographic key that unlocks your backup never leaves your phone, so even if your data sits on Google Drive or iCloud, it remains unreadable to everyone else, including Meta.
The rollout will happen gradually over the coming weeks. On Android, passkeys integrate with Google’s password manager; on iOS, Touch ID or Face ID does the heavy lifting. This update also reflects a broader shift across tech. X, for instance, is requiring users to re-enroll passkeys before November 10 to maintain account access, while Apple and Google have already embedded passkey systems deep into their ecosystems.
WhatsApp might be late to the party, but with over 3 billion users, its arrival is a big deal. The update strengthens privacy while making security effortless, a quiet evolution that turns encryption into something everyone can actually use.
If you use X, you might need to act before November 10
The company formerly known as Twitter says you might need to check your security settings before it’s too late.
November 03, 2025
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