Survey reveals increased appetite for biometrics technology among consumers

Consumers cited speed (35%), security (31%) and not having to remember passwords (33%) as primary reasons for liking biometric authentication.

Survey respondents are using biometrics on personal devices, including their iPhones (68%), Android phones (25%), laptops (12%), tablets (11%), and smart speakers (5%).

The most common form of biometric identification used with cell phones (fingerprint) was also cited as most preferred by the majority of respondents (63%) over other features, such as facial recognition (14%), voice recognition (2%), or traditional passwords and PINs (8%).

Survey respondents believe that fingerprint recognition is the most secure (50%) over the security of facial recognition (14%) or voice recognition (4%).

Not only are consumers using biometric authentication across an expanding set of devices, but the applications in which they are being used is also diversifying. Respondents are using biometrics to simply unlock their devices (80%), but also to access other applications including finance (35%) and payments (31%).

When asked if they believe companies are storing their biometrics in an ethical way, more than half of respondents (57%) are either unsure or neutral. Only about a third of respondents (35%) agree or strongly agree that their biometric data is being stored ethically.

The Consumer Sentiment Survey is based on responses of 1,000 adult consumers who had experience using biometric authentication. All respondents were located in the continental US.