A couple of years ago, the uptake of biometric technology was considered a sure thing. But fast forward to present day and companies are reluctant to use biometrics due to their negative stigma.
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Contents 
Introduction
The world's easiest business case?
The big sticking point
Putting your finger on it
Sidebar: Getting a feel for biometrics |
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Passwords may be understood as necessary for security, but most users still hate having to try to remember and change many different passwords for different systems.
| "[Biometrics] are still not ready for enterprise use as an effective alternative or supplement to widespread authentication." |
Smartcards, once expected to turn the authentication world on its head, faded into the background as technological ennui took the place of once rampant enthusiasm. Ditto public key infrastructure (PKI), the challenge-and-response encryption and authentication framework that was once expected to be ubiquitous by 2003/4, has faded into irrelevance due to customer apathy and solution complexity.
Dramatic change in user authentication policies takes a long time -- even when the alternative can be easier and more practical than current options. One such alternative is biometrics, which has shed its earlier sci-fi image but is still struggling to convince businesses it is a viable replacement for much hated passwords.
Sure, there are limited deployments of the technology: data centres, for example, often use hand geometry recognition devices at the doors of sensitive rooms to screen potential entrants. Disneyland has used the same technology to identify season pass holders. Governments are wrestling with the practical implications of using face recognition and fingerprint scanning to better identify travellers, and financial institutions have long used biometrics to secure sensitive areas of their labyrinthine facilities -- or so we are told, since most companies refuse to discuss just what security technologies they are or are not using.
An indication of just how far below expectations biometric takeup has been comes from comparing the 2000-2005 and 2003-2008 market reports from US-based biometrics cheerleader International Biometric Group (IBG). In 2000, IBG predicted worldwide biometric revenues would grow from US$399.4 million in 2000 to US$1.9 billion by 2005, predicting that private sector deployments would surpass government deployments of the technology by 2003. Biometric sales for PC and network access would, IBG believed, reach US$423 million in 2005.
| "There are still issues to resolve regarding accuracy, standards, integration, and leadership... before a common approach can be recommended." |
In its 2000 prediction, IDC projected that fingerprint scanning technology -- by far the most readily accessible and acceptable form of biometric identification -- would be worth US$656 million alone by 2005. However, IBG's own optimistic figures put fingerprint sales at just US$350 million in 2004, a figure the group said reflected the hindrance of initial growth by lack of biometric standards and overall slower uptake.
"Although exciting and potentially useful, [biometrics] is still not ready for enterprise use as an effective alternative or supplement to widespread authentication," META Group analysts wrote last year. "There are still issues to resolve regarding accuracy, standards, integration, and leadership in this area before a common approach can be recommended. We anticipate it will be late 2005 or early 2006 before we see encouraging movement from government and retail investments for potential options."
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