Cloudflare Wants To Replace Captcha With Hardware Security Keys

CAPTCHAs are annoying and we all agree that it is one of the worst parts of the modern web. However, the feature is essential to avoid bots and potential spam on online services. To find a middle ground, Cloudflare is exploring the possibility of using hardware security keys as a method to prove you’re a human.

As per Cloudflare, a user spends at least 32 seconds to complete a CAPTCHA challenge. Assuming that a user comes across a CAPTCHA once every 10 days, that’s roughly 500 human years wasted every single day. To avoid this, the company is proposing what it calls ‘Cryptographic Attestation of Personhood’.

Cloudflare’s cryptographic attestation of personhood works on devices that support Web Authentication API. The company says it works on all browsers on Windows, macOS, Ubuntu, and iOS 14.5. On the Android side of things, the feature works on Chrome with phones running Android 10 and later.