Consumer mistrust of the current processes that government and business use to protect personal information has reached new highs, according to data released by the Unisys Trusted Enterprise Index.
In response to rising fears, consumers now overwhelmingly favour the use of biometric technology to identify individuals through physical characteristics such as fingerprints, facial patterns and hand measurements, and believe this will have the greatest impact to strengthen data and border security.
'We’ve seen a consistent outcry among consumers for more effective technologies, like biometrics, that will better equip businesses and government organisations to protect and verify personal information in a way that is reliable and convenient,' said Mark Cohn, vice president for integrated security programs at Unisys.
'Consumers are concerned that current security processes at our nation’s airports and borders are inadequate, which likely will result in even more widespread adoption of biometrics within these areas.'
Some 87 per cent of consumers in the UK believe that the rise in identity fraud and the insufficient protection of personal information will become a significant security threat in the future, and feel that financial institutions and government are not doing enough to stop it, according to the survey.
And 92 per cent of UK consumers would prefer that banks, credit card companies, healthcare providers and government organisations adopt biometric technologies, as compared to other protection measures such as smart card readers, security tokens or passwords/PINs, to safely and quickly verify personal identities.
A 2006 Unisys worldwide survey on consumer security preferences last May showed that nearly 70 per cent of consumers favored biometrics as the preferred method to combat fraud and identity theft, because of its convenience and speed.
What do you think? Email us at: feedback@computing.co.uk
Further Reading:
Biometrics struggles to go mainstream
reader comments