Biometrics have revolutionized the way smartphones are secured. By using biometrics such as finger prints and facial recognition, smartphones offer enhanced levels of security that weren’t previously possible. In addition to securing smartphones, biometrics can also be used to secure computers, tablets and other devices. As more and more users become aware of the benefits biometrics can provide in terms of security, their use is becoming increasingly popular and widespread.
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Data for today’s episode is provided by Mercator Advisory Group’s report – Biometrics: Driven by Standardized Authentication, Adopted by Consumers.
By 2024, How Many Smartphone Owners Will Use Biometrics?
- By 2024, Mercator forecasts that 66% of smartphone owners will use biometrics for authentication.
- Currently, Mercator estimates that 41% of smartphone owners are using biometrics.
- Just one year ago, in 2019 only 27% of consumers used biometrics to authenticate.
- Although fingerprint readers remain the top option for authentication, an increasing percentage of users are reporting facial and voice recognition.
- Voice recognition increased to 20% of biometric authentication in the last year – up from 11% in 2019.
- Facial recognition jumped to nearly 30% of biometric authentication, up from 11% in 2019.
- Phone brands play a big role in dictating authentication methods, with Android and iPhone owners clearly emerging as more likely to use voice and facial recognition.
About Report
In recent years, user authentication based on biometrics (biometric authentication) has become a new method for consumers to open their smartphones and select mobile apps. Mercator market research indicates biometric use is increasing even as consumers adopt a greater variety of methods choosing among fingerprint, facial recognition, and voice recognition. Biometrics are important because they utilize new mobile security hardware and software to revamp authentication, lower the risk of fraud, address the mandates of the European Union’s revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), and induce changes in consumer behavior.
Mercator Advisory Group’s latest research report, Biometrics: Driven by Standardized Authentication, Adopted by Consumers, provides consumer sentiment, adoption rates, and forecasts on biometric authentication methods, both to unlock smartphones and for payment authentication. Additionally the report examines the FIDO Alliance, discussing how it has standardized authentication and the implications for biometrics and payments.
“Authentication using biometrics is rapidly being adopted by consumers, in part as a result of hardware manufacturers enabling its use, and in part because the standard for authentication created by the FIDO Alliance has increased the ease with which authenticators can utilize the mobile biometrics over the web and decrease authentication friction for consumers,” comments David Nelyubin, Research Analyst at Mercator Advisory Group and co-author of the report.
