Account Kit is Closing Down. Drop in a Proven Replacement with Minimal Dev Effort

Account Kit is Closing Down. Drop in a Proven Replacement with Minimal Dev Effort

Facebook announced that they are deprecating Account Kit and services will no longer be available starting in March 2020. If your app uses facebook account kit. If your business has an app and uses verification services for account registration and/or log in, this news could well impact how you manage accounts for the remainder of 2019 and into 2020 – so take note!  

There are thousands of websites and apps that use Account Kit for sign-up and login without email and passwords, relying instead on One Time Passcodes (OTPs) sent over SMS – it’s a quick and easy way to validate users and help keep fraudsters at bay.  

Facebook will sunset Account Kit in stages to give developers a chance to implement alternative verification solutions. The timeline is as follows:                        

• September 9th 2019 – No new apps will be able to integrate Account Kit, existing integrations will continue to work as usual
• December 9th 2019 – The daily SMS limit will be reduced to 1,000 messages per app ID per day. All other channels (including WhatsApp) will continue to work as usual
• March 9th 2020 – Account Kit will no longer be available
• June 2020 – Developers will have until June 2020 to retrieve any data or information from the Facebook platform unless they initiate shut down beforehand, in which case they will get 30 days from shut down to retrieve information / data before it’s deleted from the system

In a nutshell, if your business has an app that uses Account Kit to secure log in, or verify new customers, you’re going to need to find an alternative solution. But not to worry, though. Twilio Verify lets you replace your application's dependency on Account Kit for login using SMS, voice, and email, allowing users to quickly register for, and login to your app by without having to use a password.

• Use your existing UI/UX - minimal code change
• Extremely fast implementation with Verify
• Proven performance, global coverage, high scale

Many of our customers are replacing Account Kit with Verify, and we’ve put together a Migration Guide to help you do just that.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how Twilio can you verify phone numbers using OTP codes sent over SMS, voice, WhatsApp, or email, talk to a security specialist or sign up here to get started!