Tuesday, 28 March 2006

UK Consumer Survey Supports Biometrics

A Unisys Corp-sponsored survey of 1,000 households has shown that two out of three consumers believe their banks should be using biometric technologies, such as fingerprint and iris recognition, to combat identity theft ahead of security tokens or smart cards.

The survey demonstrated a surprisingly high level of support for biometrics, said Ed Schaffner, director at Unisys Corp, while also adding that the success of a biometrics deployment will depend on the geography and the application, not to mention the technology choice.

In the UK, supermarket customers at three stores in the Oxford area are currently trying a system that allows them to pay for their shopping using a fingerprint. The shoppers have a finger scan linked to their bank details with payment switched directly from personal to retailer accounts.

By contrast, fingerprint biometrics systems are apparently not popular among Australians, but Schaffner said they do not mind biometrics based on face recognition for immigration and customs checks. The program works by taking a live image of a person's face and using facial recognition algorithms to match the image with a digitized image stored in a microchip embedded in the traveler's passport.