Where can I find password my Face ID uses for my bank apps?

Typically, banking apps require you set them up with a user name and password, THEN they will let you use Biometric Authentication (Face ID or Touch ID) to validate you. They don't typically have their own password for Face ID, however. They are instead relying on your phone to authenticate it's you looking at the phone when logging in to your banking app, again, because you have used a user name and password to use the app in the first place.

Jm6ix wrote:

I might need help understanding this. Face Id is using a password I have inputted before but can’t remember. I can’t find the password the Face ID is using. How come Face ID can see it but I can’t?

Face ID and Touch ID biometrics may not have an associated and accessible password.

An app does not need to use a password to authenticate. Not a password you can use to log in, that is.

Apple Mail commonly uses a version of that can’t-log-in-with-it password design, for instance:

Sign in to apps with your Apple Account using app-specific passwords - Apple Support

There are other ways to authenticate as well, and not using app-specific passwords.

Certificates, for instance:

https://www.networkworld.com/article/748294/infrastructure-management-simply-put-how-does-certificate-based-authentication-work.html

Or tokens:

https://www.okta.com/identity-101/what-is-token-based-authentication/

Or the app can potentially use some third-party authentication service akin to the Sign in with Apple service, or the Microsoft Entra service, and details here can vary:

• How to use Sign in with Apple - Apple Support
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/identity-access/microsoft-entra-id

If they’re still using passwords (and not passkeys, or certificates, or tokens, or whatever), most entities with credible security also won’t store cleartext passwords anywhere. They’ll get rid of it. If they do have some secret value they use for authentication akin to a password, they’ll store the “password” using a cryptographic hash. Not storing the password itself. To compare the secret, they’ll hash the provided candidate input value, and then compare that with the saved (hashed) value. That way, a server breach won’t directly expose users’ passwords, as folks can unfortunately re-use passwords.

Here are details on how apps can use biometrics:

Logging a User into Your App with Face ID or Touch ID | Apple Developer Documentation

Again, these sorts of access questions should be directed to your bank, if the bank doesn’t directly provide this doc somewhere. They might have a password available somewhere. Or some other mens of identification.

Jm6ix wrote:

Unless you are saying every-time I attempt to open the bank app, Apple gets the password from the bank app on my phone because it confirmed authorisation from my Face ID. That would make so much sense.

Apple does not get the password from your bank to confirm Face ID. When any app requests Face ID on your phone, the only response they get is a yes or no if it has been authenticated. How the app proceeds from there depends on what they require. If they had you set up a different password to work without Face ID authentication, then that password is only saved on their servers and Apple has no idea what that could be. Login details to a server provided by the app can be saved in your Passwords, but the app must allow it.

You know when the apps allows you to save the password because you are met with the message asking you if you want to save it. You also have the option to not save the password on your device.

If this app login is using a passkey, or is using some other locally-established secret as a proxy within the app, then you may not have a password.

Contact your bank for assistance with your login.

And is exactly how ALL of my banking apps are. I have an ID and Password for each banking app I use. They also permit Biometric Authentication, which relies on the Face ID I have stored on my phone, but is turned on from within the bank app itself. It in essence is permitting a handshake between the bank app, which is authorized by my ID and Password to accept the Face ID I created to let me into the app, without having to enter my banking ID and Password.

On an iPhone you set up a passcode first. You should know your passcode at all times because there are times it is required after an iOS update, or if you turn off your phone and turn it back on. Once you have set up a passcode on your phone, you set up Face ID. It did NOT require you to use a special password for Face ID. Face ID is nothing more than a convenience to permit quicker access to your phone and apps as opposed to having to enter your passcode every time you open your phone.

Digest that for a moment and then let us know if you understand or need more clarity.

More than likely, your bank app relies on its own biometric security and does not use only Apple’s Face ID features. The password is very likely only associated with and tied to the bank, not Apple’s infrastructure. Indeed my banking information works that way.

Here’s a writeup from my bank. Yours is almost certainly similar.

Again, in my case, the bank app does indeed have a password, and that password is stored in the bank’s, and not in Apple’s infrastructure. From the bank app’s security page:

lobsterghost1 wrote:

Jm6ix wrote:

Sir, I am not speaking of your bank in particular.

Again, If Apple can find a way to save it and use later ( from the login details I INPUTTED) I should be able to veiw [view] whenever I like.

Use a browser such as Safari to access your bank’s website (one time). This will require your username and password and once successfully logged on you will see this:

Obviously the examples I showed from my bank generally apply. I doubt you use my bank, and would not have taken the trouble to provide that information unless I thought it applies in your case.

To find the password you set for your Bank app you search the method you use to remember and keep track of passwords. I use 1Password to store my passwords. My wife uses a Pages document. Others have a hand written list. Which of those methods do you have?

Jm6ix wrote:

Sir, I am not speaking of your bank in particular.

Again, If Apple can find a way to save it and use later ( from the login details I INPUTTED) I should be able to veiw whenever I like.

Unless you are saying every-time I attempt to open the bank app, Apple gets the password from the bank app on my phone because it confirmed authorisation from my Face ID. That would make so much sense.

i know that if I had to enter my password every time I used that app, I would always remember it.

Apple has introduced a solution so I don’t have to remember and that’s wonderful.

So, the bank created a new app and I have to reset my password to log in on the new app because Apple Face ID won’t let me see my own password (that still works on the old app by the way).

What you've described makes total sense and why keeping track of the password you create for sensitive apps, like banking and social media is important. I realize it's old school, but I have a metal notebook with a lock, which is stored in a locked file cabinet, where ALL important IDs and Passwords are written down for future reference.

Right. And the many banking apps I have also offer web browser access, where that ID and password (but not Face ID) can be used to authenticate the access.