I have a small user frustration when it comes to logging in with interne identity.
My original IA (let’s call it IA1) was created with a yuubi key login. No problem all good. I also connected my iPhone as An additional device to this IA, which uses facial recognition. Whenever I try to access the IA with the phone, the facial recognition doesn’t start instead it asks me to hold it close to a security key…. Ok no issue for me, I’m fine just using my laptop and yuubi key for the neuron access in any case.
I made an other IA some months ago (IA2), for social apps as I don’t want one IA connected to my main neuron to be used for all social interactions and dapps for security reasons.
I created the IA with the iPhone, with facial recognition and added my yuubi key As additional back up device. Facial recognition worked for a while yet at some point same problem as IA1, if I try access IA2 with my phone, it doesn’t even try to use facial recognition to access my IA2, instead it asks for the security key to be held close to the device.
Today I created IA3, the phone being the only device on this anchor, for now facial recognition works. But I’m frustrated that I can’t access IA2 via my phone’s facial recognition. The issue has stopped me from interacting with dapps like distrkt or open chat.
Not sure if this has been an issue for anyone before or if there is an easy step I’m not aware of to solve the issue to have easy access for my IA2 via my phone again.
Did you by any chance clear your browser history or similar on your iPhone?
Basically for FaceID to work, the II app stores some data in your browser (this is done using webauthn). When you get prompted to use FaceID it’s basically Safari saying “hey this domain (identity.ic0.app) is trying to use stored data to sign something, are you OK with this?”. Apple made the strange decision to wipe that data every now and then, in particular when you clear your browser data.
I think your best bet is to remove your iPhone device on IA2 (useless now anyway) and recreate it, and then if the issue comes up again then try to figure out what you did recently that was out of the ordinary (like wiping your browser history).
For user friendliness, we need to find a solution quickly. Apps are accessed via phone most of the time. Browser history was cleared yes.
Maybe there can be app that is prompted to open on the phone to unlock the IA? Like a google Authenticator?
Because in the end, most of the time we use apps that are correlated to chats, forums, social, with our phone. As soon I as lose the easy access that was created with my phone, I lose the motivation to use the apps that’s related to ICP. Take it as a user experience barrier that needs to be solved, imo.
Unfortunately this has been an issue for as long as II has existed… Although this appears to be a problem only on Safari.
It’s unclear why Apple made the decision to drop the credentials when the history is cleared. Now, with Apple Passkeys this might not be so much of an issue anymore. But until then we couldn’t come up with a good alternative solution.
