Monday, 22 May 2006

Research Reveals European Desire for Biometric Benefits

Europe has a positive outlook on biometrics and expects a wide range of benefits from electronic identity technologies according to research by Vanson Bourne on behalf of IT services group LogicaCMG.

The survey was conducted amongst 500 consumers in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic, respectively.

Convenience and safety while travelling and managing financial transactions were ranked more important for Europeans than perceived privacy issues, with 84% of Europeans happy to have their fingerprint taken and iris scanned when travelling abroad, with France leading the acceptance of biometrics with 92%. Czech Republic was found the most reluctant with 67%.

Portugal was leading the anticipation of reduction in identity theft and financial fraud with a staggering 95% of people in both cases expecting biometrics to help cut these crimes. Eighty-eight percent of the Europeans believed that biometric technology will reduce identity theft while 85% said it will reduce financial fraud.

“Accuracy and the consumer's belief in the accuracy has been the number one issue. Continuous development of the underlying technology has seen significant improvements from the early days of biometric solutions together with a much improved and less intrusive experience for users. Consequently the focus has moved to the real benefits of these systems and how real world solutions are delivered. We have reached a tipping point where most Europeans now highly rate the advantages of biometrics in terms of safety and convenience.” Tim Brew, director of LogicaCMG’s electronic identity practice.

“There has always been high public awareness of biometric technologies and this has played a key role in acceptance. As far back as 1996 there have been studies from the US showing similar levels of acceptance of fingerprint technology: 87% in the case of using fingerprints as a legitimate form of identity verification and 77% believing fingerprints were justified in establishing identity when cashing large personal cheques,” Brew added.