Are consumers ready for biometrics?

If Apple’s experiment with Touch ID is any indication, the answer to the above question may be a resounding yes. With the company’s increasing reliance on its Touch ID fingerprint authentication feature, iPhone users find themselves on the front edge of mainstream biometrics. And most are welcoming the feature. Why? Largely because it has made life just a little bit easier for iPhone users.

While those of us in the security profession would like to think it was the increased safekeeping of their personal data and information that has intrigued iPhone fans, we know most people are just as excited about speed and simplicity as they are about security. One recent survey, for example, found only 28 percent of respondents are very concerned with the privacy and security of their phones or mobile devices.

There are also those early adopters who are attracted to anything new or interesting, simply because it’s new and interesting. These are the individuals with the influence to take an innovation from cult trend to mainstream market position. They are the leading-edge consumers who will become increasingly important for FIs, as many of them represent the future of banked consumers.

Touch ID began as an alternative to the iPhone’s traditional PIN access and has since evolved into a payments authentication feature inside Apple Pay, the iPhone’s digital wallet. The technology enables fingerprint scanning with a microscopic camera capable of capturing and comparing high-resolution images to saved profiles. Unlike other fingerprint-scanning devices, the iPhone identifies the fingertip print, which is more difficult to lift and fake as a means for unauthorized entry into a device.

Fingerprints, however, only scratch the surface of the biometrics evolution. I explore the topic much further in the white paper, “Biometrics in the Payments Space.” It’s one of four newly updated white papers in TMG’s Fraud White Paper Series.

For more information see “The Evolving Fraud Landscape” from TMG.

 

Nicole Reyes

Nicole Reyes

Nichole has two main duties - back up for creating, managing Falcon system strategies; research, detect, mitigate fraud trends. Second duty is managing and promoting the Fraud & Risk Analysis- ... Web: www.themembersgroup.com Details