> 1. what's the backup login mechanism when you lose your mobile device?
Passkeys are synced to the cloud by default on iOS and Android, which is probably a good idea for many use cases, but might not be what you want in some instances.
> will this stop google from randomly locking my account because I happen to be a person who travels a lot and they constantly think I'm a fraudster attempting to log into my own account.
Probably not, but it will make it much easier to log back in – you won't even need to type your password if you use a 2FA-capable authenticator/passkey.
> 3a. can I use my google passkey for logging into non-Google sites?
No, a Passkey is bound to a website. But you can create as many of these as you want.
Like the commenter you are responding to, I still don't understand how any of this can possibly work in practice.
> Passkeys are synced to the cloud by default on iOS and Android, which is probably a good idea for many use cases, but might not be what you want in some instances.
OK, so how do I use my cloud synced passkey to log on to my Google account (which no longer has a password or other secret that I can back up locally) after I lose my phone?
> Probably not, but it will make it much easier to log back in – you won't even need to type your password if you use a 2FA-capable authenticator/passkey.
OK, but if the account is locked, that just gets them to display the "you're screwed" screen faster (since they don't need to wait for me to type a password), and the blast radius goes from just my Google account to all my other accounts, right?
> […] how do I use my cloud synced passkey to log on to my Google account (which no longer has a password or other secret that I can back up locally) after I lose my phone?
You don't, in the same way that you can't store the password to your password manager in your password manager. That's why having another way to log back in to your Passkey sync/backup account is crucial.
> OK, but if the account is locked, that just gets them to display the "you're screwed" screen faster (since they don't need to wait for me to type a password), and the blast radius goes from just my Google account to all my other accounts, right?
If you lose both access to your Google account and all of your devices that have your Passkeys locally synchronized, yes. The same goes for somebody taking over one synchronized device and remotely deleting all of your passkeys before you can take another device offline.
I'm personally pretty skeptical of passkey synchronization by default without a way to opt out, but I can see how availability might be just as big a concern for most non-technical users as security.
> Passkeys are synced to the cloud by default on iOS and Android, which is probably a good idea for many use cases, but might not be what you want in some instances.
Okay, but Google is suggesting logging into their account with a passkey, so how do I access the cloud if I lose the devices with my Google passkey?
Passkeys are synced to the cloud by default on iOS and Android, which is probably a good idea for many use cases, but might not be what you want in some instances.
> will this stop google from randomly locking my account because I happen to be a person who travels a lot and they constantly think I'm a fraudster attempting to log into my own account.
Probably not, but it will make it much easier to log back in – you won't even need to type your password if you use a 2FA-capable authenticator/passkey.
> 3a. can I use my google passkey for logging into non-Google sites?
No, a Passkey is bound to a website. But you can create as many of these as you want.