What is a passkey?

A passkey is what you sign in to your vauz.sealzi.com account with, instead of a password. There is nothing to remember and nothing to type: your phone or computer asks for your fingerprint, your face or its PIN, and that is the whole sign-in

How it works

When you set up your account, your phone or computer made the passkey and saved it. When you sign in, your device first checks that it is really you, with your fingerprint, face or PIN, and then answers for you. You never type a secret, so there is nothing for anyone to watch you type, guess or talk you into giving away

A passkey made for vauz.sealzi.com only works on vauz.sealzi.com. Your device will not offer it to a website that is pretending to be us

Where your passkey is kept

That depends on where your device saved it:

• On all your devices. If you use iCloud Keychain (Apple's saved passwords, on an iPhone, iPad or Mac) or Google Password Manager, the passkey can be copied to your other devices that use the same Apple or Google account. Then you can sign in from any of them
• On one device only. Some passkeys never leave the device that made them. Your dashboard marks those under the passkey's name, in amber: "On this device only — if you lose it, you'll need an email link to get back in". The note appears when the device told us, as it made the passkey, that it would not copy it anywhere else

To see which kind you have, sign in and look at the Passkeys card on your dashboard. See Manage your passkeys

Finding it on your device

Your phone or computer keeps its passkeys with its saved passwords: in Passwords on an iPhone, iPad or Mac, in Google Password Manager on Android, or in the password manager you use. Your Vauz passkey is listed under vauz.sealzi.com, or vauz.sealzi.com account, with your email address as its user name. An older one may be listed as Vauz Dashboard instead. It works the same

Two things are worth knowing:

• Deleting a passkey from your device does not take it off your account. Your dashboard still lists it until you remove it there
• Removing a passkey from your account does not delete it from your device. Your device may go on offering it. If you pick it, the sign-in page says it doesn't sign in any more and asks you to delete it from your device. See Signing in with a passkey

Security keys

A security key is a small gadget, often on a keyring, that you plug into a computer or hold against a phone. It can hold a passkey too. Because the passkey stays on the key, it goes wherever the key goes, and works on any computer you plug it into. It has to be a key that can store a passkey on itself. Vauz accepts them, but we have not been able to test one ourselves yet. See Signing in on a new device

"Handled by Vauz alone, with no third party involved"

You will see that line at the top of the Passkeys card on your dashboard. It means vauz.sealzi.com checks your passkey itself. There is no outside sign-in company in between, the way some websites have you sign in through another company's account

If your passkey is copied between your devices by iCloud Keychain or Google Password Manager, Apple or Google keeps it for you, the same way they keep your saved passwords. Checking it when you sign in is still done by vauz.sealzi.com, not by them

Why two passkeys are better than one

The Passkeys card says it plainly: "Keep two: if one device is lost, the other still signs you in"

With only one passkey, losing the device it lives on means getting back in with a link we email you. That works, but a passkey added with that recovery link has a safety pause: for its first 24 hours it cannot do some things, such as removing another passkey or changing your family. See Safety pause

With a second passkey on another device, or on a security key, you just sign in with that one. You can add one from your dashboard at any time: see Manage your passkeys

Related

• Signing in with a passkey
• Signing in on a new device
• Lost your passkey