Originally announced as \u201cProject Verify\u201d<\/a> in 2018, ZenKey was meant to be a single sign-on system, similar to the sign in with Google or Apple buttons that you see on various websites. The idea was that each carrier would offer an app that could verify your identity, then act as a pass whenever you went to log into a supported website or carry out something like a bank transfer. In theory, it could be more secure because it used data from your SIM card and location to make sure it was really you trying to log in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It doesn\u2019t seem like ZenKey got very far though, and now it\u2019s mostly disappeared. LightReading<\/em> reports that the website for it is down, AT&T stopped supporting it last year<\/a>, and the \u201cZenKey powered by Verizon\u201d app is no longer available in app stores (at least in the US). T-Mobile\u2019s website seems to have almost no references to the system as far as Google can find, though there is one article from mid-2020 on its business site that mentions it<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n To those who are familiar with the history of multi-carrier joint ventures, this outcome isn\u2019t necessarily a surprise. LightReading<\/em> called it when the service was announced in 2019, running the headline<\/a> \u201cMeet ZenKey: Telcos\u2019 Doomed Single Sign-On Service.\u201d The Verge<\/em>\u2019s Dieter Bohn called ZenKey<\/a> \u201cthe right idea from the wrong companies\u201d when he wrote about the Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative that attempted to replace SMS with the then-burgeoning RCS. He based his opinion on past products like SoftCard, which aimed to compete with Google Wallet and Apple Pay. (It succeeded about as well as CCMI did, which is to say not at all \u2014 though it probably didn\u2019t help that when it launched in 2013<\/a> it was called \u201cISIS,\u201d a name that was about to mean something very bad<\/a> to a lot of people).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the end, the usefulness of a service like ZenKey is going to rely on how much third-party support it gets \u2014 even if your app is great, most people aren\u2019t going to bother with it if they can only use it to log in to three or four sites. And why would developers add ZenKey to their sites when there are other options from the likes of Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta, which all have their own single sign-on solution with accounts people already use? Those would also likely have much better brand recognition when a user hits a login page.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Case in point: here are all the sites and apps that worked with ZenKey in July 2022, according to a Wayback Machine archive<\/a> of its now-defunct website:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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