Native Apps: Passkeys vs. Local Biometrics

Key Insights:

• Local biometrics work offline, verify the device holder, but cannot authenticate to remote services
• Passkeys establish trust with servers, work across devices, but on web cannot enforce biometric-only verification
• Combined approach recommended for regulated environments: passkeys for login, local biometrics for ongoing access

Key Technical Distinctions:

• Local biometrics (native apps): Apps directly control biometric requirements for app access and local operations via platform APIs
• Passkeys: Use hardware security modules (Secure Enclave/TEE) for private key protection, but relying parties cannot dictate whether user verification uses biometrics vs. device PIN/password
• Web limitation: Browsers control user verification modality; web apps can require userVerification but cannot enforce biometric-only
• Biometric data: Never leaves the device; stored and processed in Secure Enclave (iOS) or TEE (Android)

After biometrics on mobile phones became mainstream, many native apps started using features like Face ID or Touch ID (or the Android equivalent) to protect app access. This local biometric protection significantly improves user convenience by allowing quick and frictionless access. At first glance, passkeys and local biometrics might seem redundant because both involve verifying the user. But they serve fundamentally different purposes. This article will explore:

• Passkeys vs. Local Biometrics: How local biometrics and passkeys differ in their roles and functionality?
• Add Passkeys to Apps with Local Biometrics: Does it make sense to add passkeys to apps that already use biometrics? What are the benefits?
• Banks & Regulation: Why are local biometrics especially important for banks and sensitive apps in regulated environments?

By the end, we will have a better understanding of when and how to leverage these solutions together to create a more secure, user-friendly, and seamless app experience. We'll also outline practical scenarios where combining passkeys and local biometrics can enhance both security and convenience, ensuring that developers can make informed decisions to meet user needs effectively.

Local biometric authentication methods, such as Apple's Face ID, Touch ID or Android's biometrics capabilities leverage unique physical traits (e.g. facial features or fingerprints) to verify a user's identity. Unlike traditional PINs or passwords, which rely on something the user knows, biometrics rely on something inherent to the user. This shift eliminates the need to repeatedly type in a code, significantly reducing friction and making everyday app access both swift and secure.

Before biometrics gained mainstream traction on mobile phones, apps aiming to safeguard sensitive content often asked users to enter an additional PIN or password each time they were launched. While this approach increased security, it also introduced additional inconvenience, especially when the user had already been authenticated at the start of their session. The arrival of device-based facial recognition and fingerprint scanning technologies simplified this process. Instead of repeatedly keying in a code, a user could now unlock the app with a quick facial scan or a brief touch. If, for any reason, the biometric check fails or the user prefers not to enable it, a fallback PIN, passcode or password remains available. This design ensures both convenience and accessibility without compromising on security.

It's crucial to distinguish local biometric checks from full remote authentication events. Remote authentication occurs at the start of a new session verifying the user's identity against the service's backend systems using credentials like passwords or passkeys. This step establishes trust between the user and the service.

Local biometrics, in contrast, focus on re-verifying identity during an ongoing, authenticated session. Rather than asking the user to re-enter passwords or other credentials when they briefly leave the app or lock their phone, local biometrics confirm that the same authorized user is still in control of the device. This device-centric verification does not require an internet connection or interaction with remote servers, making it fast, reliable, and seamless in everyday use.

Biometric data is stored and processed securely within dedicated hardware security modules - like the Secure Enclave on iOS or the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) on Android. These trusted modules are designed to keep sensitive biometric data safe from tampering, extraction or transfer.

Because of this hardware-level anchoring, biometric verification cannot be easily shared across devices or services. Each device's biometric templates remain unique to that particular unit, ensuring that if a user upgrades to a new phone, they must re-enroll their biometrics from scratch. While this adds a small onboarding step when switching devices, it safeguards against unauthorized access and prevents remote attacks that could exploit centrally stored biometric data. Moreover, local biometrics work without requiring an internet connection, making them reliable even when the device is offline.

Local biometrics streamline security by verifying that the person currently handling the device is indeed the rightful, already authenticated user without requiring repeated custom PIN or password entry in case the app has an important functionality like banking, insurance or other personal details.

They maintain convenience by working seamlessly and instantly on-device, operate offline, and rely on secure hardware enclaves to protect sensitive biometric data. While they cannot replace the need for initial remote authentication (such as a passkey or password) to establish user identity in the first place, they are very good at managing and protecting subsequent, ongoing sessions.

Their limitations such as lack of portability and the need for re-enrollment on new devices are trade-offs made for the sake of enhanced convenience and tight device-level security. Ultimately, local biometrics serve as a powerful, user-friendly method of ensuring continuous trust in an app session once that trust is initially established.

Passkeys change the nature of authentication by replacing shared secrets like passwords with asymmetric cryptographic credentials. Unlike local biometrics, which only verify an already authenticated user locally, passkeys serve as a primary method of identifying users to a remote service. This ensures a secure, phishing-resistant login experience even in a scenario where the user and device are initially unknown to the application's backend.

Before passkeys, the common approach to establishing trust with a remote service involved passwords shared secrets known by both the user and the server. While passwords are simple to implement, they are vulnerable to threats like phishing, credential stuffing and password reuse.

Passkeys address these challenges by using a pair of cryptographic keys: a private key securely stored on the user's device and a corresponding public key registered with the service. When a login attempt occurs, the service sends a challenge that can only be solved by the user's private key. This ensures that even if attackers intercept data or try to trick users into revealing credentials, they cannot gain unauthorized access.

Passkeys employ asymmetric cryptography:

• Private Key (Client-Side): Stored safely within the device's secure enclave, inaccessible to other apps or even the operating system itself.
• Public Key (Server-Side): Registered with the application's backend, but useless on its own without the private key. Since the user never sends the private key over the network and never has a "shared secret" to type, phishing attempts are largely rendered ineffective. Attackers cannot trick users into typing something they do not know, and intercepting the public key offers no advantage. This architecture, supported by standards like FIDO2 and WebAuthn, ensures that the entire authentication flow is based on provable cryptographic operations rather than user-entered credentials.

This is especially important for systems where in addition to native apps also websites are in use where phishing is a large problem. Passkeys created on a mobile device can be used via Cross-Device-Authentication also on websites on a desktop machine.

One of the core advantages of passkeys is their seamless portability across a user's devices. Modern operating systems can synchronize passkeys via secure cloud storage (e.g., iCloud Keychain, Google Password Manager), enabling users to log in from multiple devices without re-registration or remembering passwords for the first installation of the app. Moreover, passkeys themselves act as a form of strong, phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication, removing the friction of traditional second factors. This synergy allows for quick, secure logins no matter which device the user chooses, reinforcing an ecosystem where secure authentication is both universally accessible and easy to maintain.

Passkeys represent a powerful, phishing-resistant method of authenticating unknown users to remote services. By leveraging asymmetric cryptography and shifting away from shared secrets to device-resident private keys, they remove many of the weaknesses that plagued password-based systems. Passkeys combine robust security, global portability and direct integration with hardware security components. As a result, they serve as a strong foundation for establishing user identity something that local biometrics alone cannot provide. In the context of native apps, passkeys are the critical first step in creating a secure session, after which local biometrics can be employed to maintain quick and convenient user access.

When it comes to authentication in native apps, passkeys and local biometrics play important but diffent roles. While they both improve user experience and security, they address fundamentally different problems:

• Passkeys authenticate unknown users to a remote service, often during the first login or when creating a new session.
• Local biometrics, such as Face ID or Touch ID, re-verify an already authenticated user locally, ensuring continuity and convenience for ongoing sessions.

Understanding these differences is vital for developers aiming to create robust authentication flows that are both secure and user-friendly.

To better understand the distinctions and complementary roles of passkeys and local biometrics, the table below compares their key characteristics across various dimensions, including purpose, use cases, security, and portability. This comparison highlights how these technologies address fundamentally different problems while working together to enhance both security and user convenience.

While the table highlights the core differences, it's important to recognize that passkeys and local biometrics are not competing technologies - they're complementary. Together, they provide a layered authentication experience:

1. Passkeys for Initial Authentication, Re-Login and MFA
   Passkeys are important in establishing trust between a user and a remote service. They provide phishing-resistant, cross-platform and cross-device authentication by using asymmetric cryptography. This ensures that even if attackers intercept data, they cannot access user accounts. With seamless cloud synchronization (e.g. iCloud Keychain or Google Password Manager), passkeys enable users to log in effortlessly across devices, making them ideal for first-time sign-ins, re-installs or multi-factor authentication (MFA) scenarios. They also serve as a bridge between mobile apps and websites, offering a consistent and secure experience across an ecosystem. For apps requiring heightened security, passkeys can replace traditional second-factor methods with a self-contained MFA solution.
2. Local Biometrics for ongoing Verification: Once authenticated, local biometrics offer quick, secure and frictionless access to apps by verifying that the same authorized user is operating the device. Unlike passkeys, local biometric checks are device-centric and offline, relying on secure hardware enclaves to store and process data. This ensures that sensitive information never leaves the device, adding a layer of security without requiring constant user input. By reducing the need to re-enter credentials, local biometrics enhance the user experience, particularly for apps that handle sensitive information like banking or healthcare. They protect ongoing sessions by verifying the device holder, ensuring convenience without compromising security.

In combining passkeys and local biometrics, developers can deliver a secure, seamless and user-friendly authentication flow.

By combining passkeys and local biometrics, developers can create a robust authentication flow that:

• Improves Security: Passkeys protect against phishing, credential stuffing and password theft, while local biometrics prevent unauthorized access to authenticated sessions.
• Enhances User Experience: Local biometrics eliminate the need to repeatedly enter passwords or passkeys, creating a frictionless experience after initial authentication. In case a re-authentication is needed because of timeouts or sign-outs reauthentication is as easy as unlocking the app.
• Simplifies Multi-Device Access: Passkeys enable cross-platform authentication, while local biometrics provide convenient device-level security. If passkeys are used on the web, adding them to the native app is an important additional step to close the gap and offer a full-service passkey experience for the user.

This synergy ensures that apps can provide both strong authentication and seamless convenience a winning combination for modern user expectations.

While adding passkey functionality to a native app is technically straightforward, driving user adoption presents a significant hurdle, especially in apps with a large, established user base. The primary reason is the widespread use of local biometrics for unlocking the app. This existing, convenient behavior means users rarely perform a full, remote login. As a result, the most effective passkey creation opportunity - the post-sign-in nudge—is almost entirely absent in comparison to web applications. This section outlines strategies to overcome this challenge by identifying alternative moments to encourage passkey creation without disrupting the seamless user experience provided by local biometrics.

As detailed in Corbado's guide to passkey creation best practices, a successful rollout depends on finding the right moments to nudge users. Below is a playbook of strategies adapted for native apps, highlighting different triggers and their expected impact.

Successfully implementing these strategies requires extremely detailed tracking and telemetry. It is crucial to monitor how, when and where users are prompted to avoid "prompt fatigue" and ensure the nudges do not interfere with the seamless experience of local biometric unlocks. Logging each step of the creation funnel (prompt shown, clicked, started, completed/failed) is necessary to optimize the rollout and achieve high adoption rates without frustrating users.

For new users installing the app for the first time or for existing users logging in with conventional methods like a password, the onboarding process presents a golden opportunity to establish a secure and passwordless foundation. Since these users have not yet set up a passkey for the app, the flow can be designed to prioritize the strongest authentication method from the start.

The recommended approach is:

1. Create Passkey First: Whether a user is signing up for the first time or logging in with a password, they should immediately be prompted to create a passkey. For new sign-ups, this creates a phishing-resistant credential from day one. Modern platform features, like Apple's Passkey Account Creation API, can even create the account and the passkey in a single, streamlined step using a native UI, completely bypassing traditional sign-up forms. For existing users, this prompt serves as a crucial security upgrade, moving them away from vulnerable passwords.
2. Add Local Biometrics Second: Once the passkey is created and the account is secured, if the app handles sensitive data or has features that would benefit from session protection (as outlined in our recommendations), the app should then prompt the user to enable local biometrics (e.g. Face ID/Touch ID) to protect the logged-in app content.

This sequence ensures the user's account is secured for remote authentication first, and then the local session is protected, perfectly aligning with the complementary roles of passkeys and local biometrics.

In order to gain a better understanding of how real-world examples and combinations work, we will examine two different implementations: one that leverages only passkeys and another that uses a combined approach.

The Kayak app demonstrates an implementation of passkeys for user authentication. Passkeys are seamlessly integrated into the login process, offering users the option to authenticate without needing to remember their email address or password. As shown in the authentication screen, users can directly select a passkey to log in. This approach significantly simplifies the user experience by reducing cognitive load and eliminating password-related friction.

Once authenticated via a passkey, the user gains unrestricted access to the app without requiring reauthentication. This design is particularly suitable for Kayak, a travel app that primarily manages booking history and itineraries, which are not considered highly sensitive or critical data.

Key Highlights of Kayak's Approach:

• Passkey Login on Authentication Screen: The app immediately offers passkey login, reducing steps and enhancing user convenience.
• No Local Biometric Protection Post-Login: Given that the app doesn't handle sensitive personal data, Kayak has chosen not to implement local biometric protections, like Face ID or fingerprint lock, for the logged-in state. This decision aligns with the app's data security needs while maintaining a frictionless experience for users.

This implementation demonstrates how passkeys can streamline the authentication process while eliminating the need for passwords, providing a frictionless experience for users. However, in scenarios where more sensitive or critical actions are performed within the app, additional layers of security, such as local biometrics, may be necessary. Let's explore how GitHub leverages both passkeys and biometrics to ensure security without compromising usability.

GitHub balances the integration of passkeys for secure login with local biometrics to protect app content in the logged-in state. Passkeys are offered as a fast, phishing-resistant login option, which is particularly important given GitHub's multi-factor authentication (MFA) requirements. This eliminates the need for users to manage passwords or one-time passcodes, providing a seamless and secure login experience. But for the sake of this article we will not look at their passkey implementation.

GitHub's Additional Layer of Security with Local Biometrics:
Because GitHub also offers sensitive operations like merging pull requests, GitHub allows users to enable local biometric protection if they feel it is necessary. In this example, Face ID is used to lock the app on iOS, ensuring only the device owner can access or execute the GitHub App. The app explicitly requests the necessary privileges from the operating system to activate biometrics and offers configurable intervals (e.g. immediate or after a defined timeout).

Key Highlights of GitHub's Approach:

• Passkey Login for MFA Compliance: GitHub leverages passkeys to streamline secure logins without compromising on multi-factor authentication standards.
• Biometric Lock for App Protection: By using local biometrics like Face ID, GitHub ensures that logged-in sessions cannot be abused or accessed by unauthorized individuals. This additional layer of security is crucial for apps handling sensitive user data or actions.

Together, these examples illustrate how passkeys and local biometrics can be tailored to the needs of different apps, balancing user convenience with appropriate security measures.

While the examples above show how passkeys and local biometrics work in practice, regulated industries face additional considerations. For banking and financial services, the distinction between passkey authentication and local biometric verification takes on critical importance from a compliance perspective. Understanding how passkeys validate user presence and identity is essential when navigating regulatory requirements like PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) in Europe or similar frameworks worldwide.

Passkeys validate two critical aspects during authentication:

1. User Presence: They confirm that someone is physically at the device when authentication occurs.
2. User Verification: They verify the person's identity through either:
   • Biometrics (what the user is): Face ID, Touch ID, fingerprint, etc.
   • Knowledge factor (what the user knows): Device password, passcode, or PIN.

This dual validation applies to both web and native implementations. However, from a regulatory standpoint, this "feature" of passkeys often sits at the heart of compliance reviews. The challenge arises because passkeys, by design, can accept either biometric verification or a device passcode/password as valid authentication factors.

While accepting a device passcode isn't a security vulnerability in authentication terms, it creates significant privacy and access control concerns, especially for regulated applications:

• Shared Access Risk: A friend, spouse, or family member who knows the device passcode could access sensitive banking or financial apps, even though they shouldn't have that permission.
• Child Access Prevention: Without enforcing biometrics, children who know their parent's device code could inadvertently (or intentionally) access sensitive financial applications.
• Regulatory Compliance: Many financial regulations require strong user verification that can distinguish between authorized users and others who may have legitimate device access but not application access.

By enforcing local biometrics, apps can ensure that only biometric unlocks are accepted, effectively closing this gap. This is not merely a technical security measure - it's a privacy and compliance safeguard that protects against scenarios where device access doesn't equal application authorization.

For regulated environments, a layered authentication strategy provides both security and compliance:

Initial Authentication (New User or New Device):

1. Passkey Creation: User authenticates with a passkey on a new device or during first app installation.
2. Step-Up Methods: For enhanced security on first use, combine passkey authentication with additional verification:
   • SMS OTP
   • Liveness detection
   • Video identification
   • Other regulatory-compliant methods

This "passkey step-up" approach ensures the initial trust establishment meets regulatory standards, particularly important for PSD2's Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements.

Ongoing Authentication (Established User):

3. Local Biometrics Enforcement: Once the initial trust is established, activate and enforce local biometric verification (e.g. Face ID, fingerprint).
4. Subsequent Access: All following app unlocks require biometric verification, preventing passcode-based access and ensuring the verified user is actually present.

This combination satisfies regulatory requirements while maintaining excellent user experience: strong authentication on first use, then seamless biometric access for everyday use.

When passkeys are part of a critical compliance review, the corresponding web implementation immediately comes into focus too because you cannot enforce biometrics on passkeys in web. On the web you can require userVerification, but browsers decide the modality, so users may satisfy UV with biometrics or a device PIN. For web-based banking and financial applications, the challenge is more complex since local biometric enforcement is not directly controllable by the web application. However, this gap can be effectively closed through intelligent device trust mechanisms and shared device detection.

The Shared Device Challenge:

On web, a critical concern for regulated environments is preventing passkey creation on shared devices—library computers, internet cafés, or kiosks where multiple users access their accounts. Without controls, users might inadvertently create passkeys on devices they don't own, creating privacy and security issues.

How Corbado addresses Web Device Trust:

Instead of fingerprinting - which is not a standalone SCA element under PSD2 and should not be treated as an SCA factor. Corbado uses a sophisticated cookie-based device trust system combined with client environment tracking:

1. Shared Device Detection: The system monitors how many different users log into a service from the same browser environment. If multiple users (e.g. more than two) are detected within a monitoring period (typically 30 days), that environment is classified as "shared" and passkey creation is blocked or discouraged.

2. Smart Device Recognition: Rather than creating a new "device" for every login, the system intelligently recognizes when a user has simply updated their browser, switched from normal to incognito mode, or is using the same physical device. This prevents device list bloat while maintaining accurate trust signals.

3. Platform-Specific Policies:

   • Mobile (iOS/Android): Immediate passkey creation allowed, as shared mobile devices are rare
   • Desktop (Windows/macOS): Waiting period before allowing passkey creation, ensuring the device isn't shared

4. High Durability: Real-world data shows 95%+ probability of device trust retention in the first 30 days, even on Safari with Intelligent Tracking Protection. For high-frequency banking logins, cookie-based trust is highly reliable.

Deployment Models for Regulated Environments:

Corbado supports staged deployment strategies:

• SDK with Telemetry Only: Monitor device landscape and passkey readiness before full rollout
• Hybrid Approach: Combine passkey authentication with traditional methods during transition
• Fully Managed Solution: Complete implementation with device trust and shared device detection

Additional Web Protections:

For regulated use cases, layer additional security:

• Step-Up Authentication: Require additional verification for sensitive operations on untrusted or new devices
• Cross-Channel Verification: Combine web passkey login with app push notifications, ensuring multi-channel access
• Continuous Monitoring: Track session behavior and re-authenticate for high-risk actions

For Regulated Use Cases:

The combination of device trust, shared device detection, and step-up mechanisms creates a compliant authentication flow for web applications. However, each regulated environment has unique requirements. For detailed guidance on implementing these controls for your specific compliance needs, contact our team to discuss your regulated use case.

For banks and regulated applications, local biometrics are not just a convenience feature - they're a critical compliance and privacy control. By enforcing biometric-only verification, organizations can:

• Close privacy gaps that arise from shared device access
• Meet regulatory requirements more comprehensively
• Protect vulnerable users (children, elderly) from unauthorized access
• Maintain audit compliance with clear authentication factors
• Provide seamless user experience without sacrificing security

The combination of passkeys for strong initial authentication, step-up methods for regulatory compliance, and local biometric enforcement for ongoing access creates a robust, compliant, and user-friendly authentication ecosystem suitable for the most demanding regulated environments.

With this understanding of how passkeys and local biometrics work together—both in general applications and in highly regulated contexts—let's now look at practical recommendations for different scenarios.

Below are four recommendations tailored to common scenarios where local biometrics and passkeys might be implemented. The recommendations are structured so that developers, product managers, and decision-makers can quickly identify which approach best fits their situation. A summary table follows, making it easy to map each recommendation to a given scenario:

1. For Regulated, Sensitive or High-Value Data Apps: Passkeys + Local Biometrics
   If your app deals with critical, personal, regulated, or high-sensitivity data (e.g., financial, healthcare, governmental, personally identifiable information), implement local biometrics for secure, frictionless re-authentication. This ensures that once users are signed in, ongoing access to sensitive features is protected by on-device factors (Face ID, Touch ID, fingerprint scanning) without re-entering credentials. At the same time this is also a strong indication to implement passkey sand enforce the MFA-requirement across for device types. This is where Corbados Enterprise Passkey Suite can help you especially if your are in a large scale deployment and want to make sure that you can achieve a 100% passkey adoption.
2. Large-Scale Consumer App: Passkey Integration Across All Devices
   Even outside of sensitive areas a passkey implementation makes sense to avoid phishing and remove the password pain. When planning a passkey rollout, ensure it's part of a holistic authentication strategy that spans all device types, including native apps, web interfaces, and other connected endpoints. Don't treat passkeys as a one-off feature; instead, integrate them consistently across mobile, desktop, and web to provide a unified and user-friendly login experience. When passkeys are already part of your web authentication, it is imperative to extend this functionality to your native apps. This ensures a consistent, secure, and user-friendly login experience across all platforms, leveraging the strong security and convenience of passkeys everywhere your service is offered.
3. Greenfield or Standalone Apps:
   For new (greenfield) applications or standalone apps without legacy authentication baggage from web, consider starting with passkeys from the beginning. The ideal onboarding flow prompts for passkey creation immediately after account setup, followed by a prompt to enable local biometrics for session protection if required. By doing so, you create a future-proof authentication scheme that eliminates password issues and lays the groundwork for frictionless and secure user journeys across all platforms. Take a look at our Corbado Complete solution.
4. Avoid Partial Implementations for Multi-Device Ecosystems:
   If your service spans multiple device types (e.g., mobile, web, and desktop), do not introduce passkeys in only one environment. Partial implementations reduce consistency and can confuse users. Instead, adopt passkeys uniformly to ensure a smooth, unified login experience everywhere. Rolling them out step by step or first on the largest device types and then in the native app is reasonable, but it should be done within a short time frame.

While the above recommendations cover a range of common scenarios, there are countless other situations where the choice of implementing local biometrics, passkeys, or both may vary. Every application has unique security, usability, and compliance needs, and it's essential for developers, product managers, and business leaders to thoroughly assess these factors before settling on an approach. By carefully weighing your specific use cases, regulatory requirements, and user expectations, you can craft an authentication strategy that not only protects your users and their data but also delivers the seamless, user-friendly experience today's customers have come to expect.

As we have seen, local biometrics and passkeys serve fundamentally different yet complementary roles in modern authentication strategies. Local biometrics simplify ongoing session verification by leveraging the user's inherent traits for rapid, on-device checks, while passkeys establish a secure and phishing-resistant trust relationship with remote services. By thoughtfully combining these methods, developers can create a user experience that is both frictionless and highly secure, effectively meeting the needs of a diverse and demanding digital landscape. Coming back to the questions from the Introduction:

• Passkeys vs. Local Biometrics: How local biometrics and passkeys differ in their roles and functionality?
  Local biometrics provide convenient, device-centric re-verification for users already authenticated, ensuring that the rightful owner is continuously controlling the device. In contrast, passkeys replace shared secrets like passwords, enabling secure, initial remote authentication and easy cross-device portability, thereby eliminating phishing risks and offering a unified login experience across platforms and form factors.
• Add Passkeys to Apps with Local Biometrics: Does it make sense to add passkeys to apps that already use biometrics?
  Yes, it often makes sense. Biometrics alone do not establish initial user identity with remote services, whereas passkeys do. Incorporating passkeys alongside existing local biometrics can strengthen overall security while maintaining user convenience. Passkeys handle the critical first step of authentication and cross-device portability, while biometrics streamline subsequent access and ongoing session verification.
• Banks & Regulation: Why are local biometrics especially important for banks and sensitive apps?
  In regulated environments, local biometrics serve as a critical compliance and privacy control. By enforcing biometric-only verification, organizations can close privacy gaps from shared device access, meet regulatory requirements like PSD2, and protect against unauthorized access scenarios where someone knows the device passcode but shouldn't have app access. On web platforms where biometric enforcement isn't possible, intelligent device trust and shared device detection mechanisms provide equivalent protection.

By recognizing the distinct yet mutually beneficial roles of passkeys and local biometrics - from general applications to highly regulated environments - developers and decision-makers can implement a comprehensive authentication approach that balances security, convenience, and user satisfaction. In doing so, applications become more resilient against threats, easier to navigate, and more adaptable to evolving user and regulatory requirements ultimately delivering a seamless and trustworthy digital environment.