New plans have been approved by tech giants that will see passwords used to sign in to websites and apps phased out and replaced by smartphone features like fingerprint and facial recognition.

Apple, Google and Microsoft – among many other tech firms – have all agreed on plans to enact the new security standards, meaning the days of forgetting your password could soon be a thing of the past.

The new practice will be developed by industry bodies The Fido Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. In a statement, they claim the new authentication system will make the web more “secure and amiable”. Tech’s big three signalling their intent to be a part of the plans is crucial as it means people will be able to sign in on another device even if they run on rival operating systems.

The move comes in response to increasing security fears around not only poor password practice, but the fact that this is becoming more prevalent as people have to remember more and more usernames and passwords – leading to credentials being reused.

In a statement, the Fido Alliance said: “Password-only authentication is one of the biggest security problems on the web, and managing so many passwords is cumbersome for consumers.”

Apple, Google and Microsoft have all signalled their intention of rolling out the new features in the coming year. It should be noted, however, that customers will still be given the option to use a password if they prefer.

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“Even if you lose your phone, your passkeys will securely sync to your new phone from cloud backup, allowing you to pick up right where your old device left off,” Google said in a statement.