Challenges and Potential Improvements for Passkey Adoption—A Literature Review with a User-Centric Perspective
Alexander Matzen, Artur Rüffer, Marcus Byllemos, Oliver Heine, Μαρία Παπαϊωάννου, Gaurav Choudhary, Nicola Dragoni · Applied Sciences · 2025
This paper provides a comprehensive review of the recent literature on passkeys, a more secure and phishing-resistant authentication method compared to traditional passwords. Despite their clear advantages, passkeys have not yet replaced the de facto standard of password authentication. This literature survey aims to outline a holistic picture of the related research, focusing on technical aspects as well as user-centric perspectives on usability and perception. The main challenges hindering passkey adoption are misaligned user perception and technical issues regarding account recovery, sharing, and delegation. Research suggests that improved user education and awareness could address these challenges. Existing studies have also analyzed and contributed to enhancing the usability of passkeys. However, the current literature highlights a clear gap for more academic research focusing on effective strategies to improve the user perception of passkeys, as the existing work primarily concentrates on technical and usability aspects. Addressing this research gap may lead to increased passkey adoption among end users, ultimately improving the overall security of authentication systems.