Ever since Apple added a fingerprint scanner to the iPhone 5S in 2013, consumers have become increasingly used to interacting with biometric authentication technology. But now, less than five years later, can companies around the electronics and authentication spaces push consumers to adopt the next step in the evolution of biometrics: facial recognition?
Biometric authentication and other security features have come under increased scrutiny lately, as roughly 143 million consumers continue to feel the initial ripples from this month’s Equifax data breach, yet providers are still hoping to push the technology forward.
The September edition of the PYMNTS Digital Identity Tracker™, powered by Socure, features more on recent headlines surrounding biometric authentication and other notable trends from around the security and authentication space.
Around the Digital Identity World
After Apple unveiled the facial recognition (Face ID) replacement for fingerprint scanning on its new top-of-the-line iPhone X, several other companies looked to further bolster the security of mobile devices by taking a page from Apple’s playbook and adding their own biometric-based authentication abilities.
KFC, for one, showed it isn’t, well, chicken when it comes to trying out new authentication technologies in China. According to several reports, the fried chicken chain is now accepting payment via Face ID tech at certain locations in the country.
Similarly, financial institution ANZ is also looking to boost mobile payment protection through biometric authentication. The company recently debuted Voice ID, a new system to better authenticate and protect users making mobile payments through voice-based biometrics.
BoA Explores Faces and the Next Phase of Biometrics
Meanwhile, for banks and other financial institutions, implementing biometric authentication often means striking a difficult balance between consumer convenience and security.
According to Hari Gopalkrishnan, managing director of consumer-facing platforms and technology for Bank of America (BoA), while banking security features obviously need to be secure, if consumers find an authentication method to be cumbersome, intrusive or difficult to set up and interact with frequently, they may choose not to use it at all.
In a recent interview with PYMNTS for the September Tracker’s feature story, Gopalkrishnan explained that passing on biometric authentication could leave consumers’ digital identities more easily exposed to fraudsters, hackers and other bad actors, potentially resulting in a data breach.
“We need to know what our customers really want to use before we can commercialize something and put it out to [them],” Gopalkrishnan said. “Once we know they want something, then we can make it part of our platform, because then we’re confident they’ll use it and not leave themselves vulnerable.”
To read this month’s Digital Identity Tracker Feature Story and check out more recent notable news headlines and trends, download the September Tracker.
To download the September edition of the Digital Identity Tracker™, powered by Socure, please fill out the form below.
The PYMNTS.com Digital Identity Tracker™, powered by Socure, is a forum for framing and addressing key issues and trends facing the entities charged with efficiently and securely identifying and granting permission to individuals to access, purchase, transact or otherwise confirm their identity.
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