diff --git a/plugins/modules/authorized_key.py b/plugins/modules/authorized_key.py
index ba83c1f..12cc1f0 100644
--- a/plugins/modules/authorized_key.py
+++ b/plugins/modules/authorized_key.py
@@ -230,7 +230,6 @@ from operator import itemgetter
 from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native
 from ansible.module_utils.basic import AnsibleModule
 from ansible.module_utils.urls import fetch_url
-from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
 
 class keydict(dict):
@@ -578,9 +577,10 @@ def enforce_state(module, params):
         # resp.read gives bytes on python3, convert to native string type
         key = to_native(key, errors='surrogate_or_strict')
 
-    if key.startswith("file"):
+    file_prefix = "file://"
+    if key.startswith(file_prefix):
         # if the key is an absolute path, check for existense and use it as a key source
-        key_path = urlparse(key).path
+        key_path = key[len(file_prefix):]
         if not os.path.exists(key_path):
             module.fail_json(msg="Path to a key file not found: %s" % key_path)
         if not os.path.isfile(key_path):