Most Canadians interested in biometrics replacing passwords: survey
Posted January 10, 2018 7:00 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – You might have already used your fingerprint and phone to pay for something, but would you be willing to use voice recognition, an eye scan or even vein pattern recognition?
Banks have been quietly working on biometrics as a replacement for passwords and PINs for a few years now, following the lead of companies like Apple and its ApplePay system.
“Advances in mobile device technology is increasing the speed and accuracy of biometrics, such that they can be used for financial transactions,” says Gord Jamieson, Head of Risk Services, Visa Canada. “This makes it the ideal time to integrate biometric technology into payments experiences for customers.”
A survey for Visa asked Canadians about their attitudes toward biometrics and found 85 per cent are very interested in using the technology to verify identity to make a payment.
About six in 10 are already familiar with biometrics, most notably fingerprint scans but also eye scans, facial recognition and even the use of vein patterns or unique behavioural patterns.
A quarter of Canadians say they already use fingerprint scans regularly, 10 per cent use voice recognition.
Nearly half (47%) of consumers asked felt that the top benefit of using biometrics is the elimination of the need to remember multiple passwords or PINs. Nearly the same percentage (44%) consider biometrics more secure than passwords or PINs for verifying identity.
A third of Canadians say they have actually abandoned an online purchase because they couldn’t remember their password.
But there are concerns.
More than 40 per cent of those asked are worried about a security breach revealing sensitive biometric information. The same number of people think biometric authentication won’t work well and will take multiple tries.
