Earlier this month, Apple announced Advanced Data Protection for iCloud with end-to-end encryption for user data. More than that, the company also revealed that it will soon provide support for physical security keys when using two-factor authentication with Apple ID. This option is now available for beta users running iOS 16.3.
First and foremost, Apple has announced that starting in 2023, users will be able to enhance their Apple ID and iCloud account protection using hardware Security Keys. This means you will have a physical hardware device that you can setup to serve as the second layer of two-factor authentication for your account.
Apple tells 9to5Mac that this Security Key system integrates with its device-to-device transfer process. So once authenticate your iPhone with the Security Key, you won’t have to do it again if you get a new iPhone so long as you use the device-to-device setup transfer process when setting up a new iPhone.
On Wednesday, Apple released the first iOS 16.3 beta for developers. And while we are still looking for everything that’s new with the update, we can already confirm that iOS 16.3 enables support for physical security keys for Apple ID.
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