# This Week in Identity, Issue 1

Source: https://startwithidentity.com/newsletter/2026-06-20-this-week-in-identity-01/
Last updated: 2026-06-20
License: content by Start with Identity. Cite the source URL.

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Welcome to the first issue of This Week in Identity, a short weekly digest from the [Start with Identity](https://startwithidentity.com/) community. We read the week's identity and security news so you don't have to, link to the original sources, and add a line on why each one matters. Free, independent, no sponsorship.

This week was dominated by passkeys, with a milestone number, a Linux expansion, and a reality check.

## The big number

**An estimated 5 billion passkeys are now in active use worldwide.** The FIDO Alliance put the figure out on World Passkey Day 2026, alongside research reporting near-universal awareness of passkeys among consumers and enterprises.
Why it matters: awareness and provisioning are no longer the problem. The remaining work is activation and account recovery at scale.
Sources: [FIDO Alliance: Five Billion Passkeys](https://fidoalliance.org/five-billion-passkeys-a-milestone-not-a-finish-line/), [FIDO Alliance: Accelerating Global Passkey Adoption](https://fidoalliance.org/fido-alliance-reports-accelerating-global-passkey-adoption-on-world-passkey-day-2026/)

## What else happened

- **Amazon shared customer passkey data.** Amazon reports 465 million customers now using passkeys, with sign-in it describes as roughly six times faster than passwords. A useful datapoint on consumer-scale adoption from a single large retailer. [Source](https://fidoalliance.org/https-fidoalliance-org-amazon-shares-data-on-their-customer-passkey-adoption/)
- **RSA extended passwordless to Linux.** FIDO-based, phishing-resistant sign-in is coming to Linux servers, developer workstations, and infrastructure that has long leaned on passwords. Workforce passwordless beyond the laptop is where a lot of the hard, high-value identity work sits. [Source](https://fidoalliance.org/id-tech-rsa-extends-passwordless-authentication-to-linux-environments/)
- **Confidence is outrunning reality.** A new FIDO Alliance and HID study, The State of Physical and Digital Identity in the Enterprise, finds a widening gap between how secure enterprises believe their identity posture is and how it performs day to day. Worth a read if you are building next year's roadmap. [Source](https://fidoalliance.org/biometric-update-passkey-adoption-stalls-at-scale-despite-strong-interest-new-study-shows/)

## Worth thinking about

FIDO Alliance CTO Nishant Kaushik wrote on building a trust layer for **agentic payments**, where AI agents shop and transact on a person's behalf using verifiable intent. As agents start to act with delegated authority, the identity questions (who authorized this, for what, and how is it proven) move to the center. [Source](https://fidoalliance.org/building-the-trust-layer-for-agentic-payments-with-ap2-and-verifiable-intent/)

## From the community

- New: a vendor-neutral [IAM jobs board](https://startwithidentity.com/jobs/). Browse roles worldwide, or post one free.
- We're recruiting [volunteers](https://startwithidentity.com/community/#volunteer): news curators, jobs scouts, country ambassadors, and more. A few hours a week, credited by name.

That's it for issue 1. [Subscribe](https://startwithidentity.com/subscribe/) to get the next one, and send tips or corrections through the [contact form](https://startwithidentity.com/contact/).