Rawlson King, lead researcher for Biometrics Research Group, says the biometric industry is experiencing exponential growth, expected to go from billion in 2015 to .5 billion in 2020, as the global banking and financial services industry continues to make “large-scale investments” in the race against rampant identity theft and account fraud.
He also discusses the death of the password and the ability to one day access information or open doors “with a simple thought,” which, he says, is the direction we may be heading.
Here is an abbreviated version of his recent interview with Financial Sense, which aired Wednesday on our podcast (see Rawlson King on the Evolution of Biometrics).
Financial Sense: Are biometrics going to eventually replace passwords?
King: Absolutely. I think that's the goal right now of biometrics, which is to replace the approach towards authentication…because, as we know, the password has a lot of flaws; often people forget their passwords; often they use really silly passwords like "1234" or "password" itself and so it's very hard therefore to ensure safety of data…since it's such an insecure method of authentication.
So we will definitely see an increase in the use of biometrics versus passwords and, in fact, major corporations like Microsoft…are actively seeking ways to phase out the password. So I could say probably within five to ten years we can expect the death of the password with operating systems and definitely expect the death of the password or the passcode on smartphones.
How big of a problem is identity theft and stolen account information related to the insecurity of current systems today?
The losses are continuing to grow and, in fact, exceeded the billion in terms of property crimes based off of identity theft so we know the cost of this is just exponentially growing and that's a major factor in terms of people adopting and utilizing biometrics. The fact that personal information like credit card information might be compromised by the use of a poor password is one of the driving factors, especially in the financial industry and the financial services sector for stronger authentication and so what we're seeing is banks…[making] major large-scale investments into biometrics.
Is the global banking and financial services industry the main investor into this area?
Increasingly, we would see that as the second major sector with security as number one and that's where you see a direct application of biometric technology in your daily life in North America is when you're at a border crossing or at an airport and you're observing someone coming into the country and they have a VISA and if they are at that point of entry they might be asked for their biometrics so that is number one still and will continue to be a driving force in the biometric industry. But, basically, at its heels is the finance sector for obvious reasons in an attempt to address identity theft and making substantive moves towards changing the authentication system so that data can be secure and that the flows of capital and people's management of their assets are secure.
And that's why we, the Biometric Research Group, are ultimately projecting that the global biometrics market will continue to grow at an exponential pace. When we started BiometricUpdate.com, which is our news site, we had projected that the industry would grow from a value of billion to billion from 2012 to 2015. Now we are projecting that the industry will grow from billion in 2015 to .5 billion in 2020 and a lot of this will be driven by the financial industry.
What are some of the different biometric authentication methods currently in use?
There's face recognition. There's iris recognition. There's vein recognition and voice recognition. Those are the primary biometric technologies that are used today along with, of course, fingerprint recognition, which accounts for the greatest share of the marketplace. Fingerprints are the most popular because the sensors have been miniaturized enough to be in our smart phones so with the advent of proprietary payment technologies such as Apple Pay you're going to be able to use the fingerprint sensor on your phone to ensure authentication for payments. Face and vein recognition is actively being used in ATMs in Asia....and vein recognition actually is in use in Japan so it's like a hand scanner and you put your hand on the scanning pad and it will verify who you are so the technology is definitely in place and we can expect...that type of technology to take off.
There was a recent study that showed biometric “brainprints” can identify people with 100% accuracy. Do you see that being put in use some day?
It would take some time to build commercial processes where that type of modality would be applicable. So we don't see that as occurring quickly. Maybe we will see that down the road in 25 or 30 years from now in terms of commercial application but I think the concept is too new right now and it's very difficult to build the technology to commercialize that because, remember, the reason why the other modalities like fingerprint or facial recognition are becoming popular...is because of computing power and miniaturization and the fact that we can embed those sensors easily into computing devices.
However, that type of research is pushing the envelope and it's very important...but 25 or 30 years down the road, who knows, you might be opening your door with a simple thought—it’s completely conceivable that we are heading in that direction…
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