Congressional Quarterly

Fingerprint Technology Has the Upper Hand in Biometric ID Market

May 11, 2004
By Justin Rood

Fingerprint recognition technologies are poised to dominate the biometric identification market over the next five years, according to a new report from a private research company.

But industry leaders say facial recognition technologies will increasingly compete with fingerprint identification as the market for biometric identification systems takes off.

By 2008, sales of fingerprint recognition systems are projected to reach nearly $1.5 billion, up from less than $200 million last year, according to the report, published by the New York-based International Biometric Group (IBG).

IBG said fingerprint technology is expected to make up 60 percent of the biometric market in five years, particularly because of an expected sharp increase in the use of fingerprint readers to control access to computer networks.

Fingerprint technology is the easiest way to determine whether a computer is being used by its owner, according to the report.

But leading biometric companies differed on the prediction's accuracy.

"I think the exact numbers are difficult to predict, but one thing is very clear: Fingerprint technology has become the dominant biometric of choice," said Joseph Atick, president and CEO of Identix, a Minnetonka, Minn.-based identification technology firm. "I agree that fingerprint will remain the dominant biometric by 2008," Atick said.

Identix, which develops both fingerprint and facial recognition technology, recently received a $27 million contract to provide the Department of Homeland Security with fingerprint scanning systems for the bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services and other agencies.

"We're so early in the adoption curve of biometrics that to make bold statements like that is perhaps a little early," said John Dorr, vice president for marketing at Billerica, Mass.-based Viisage. The company, which has developed a specialization in facial recognition technology, currently produces U.S. passports for the State Department - a contract worth an estimated $6 million.

The company also provides the Department of Defense with a security card system for its 4.1 million employees worldwide.

The IBG report says the main competing technology to fingerprint identification is iris recognition, because of its high accuracy and ease of use, as well as aggressive marketing as being "nearly impervious to error."

"If you look at it purely from an accuracy point of view, iris is very accurate," said Viisage's Dorr. "But the reason why facial recognition has a play as well is [that] the world is filled with images of people."

On this point, Identix's Atick agreed. "In the world today, there are an estimated 1.2 billion images in databases," he said. "The second biometric [to gain popularity] will be facial, because it has been mandated for passports and IDs around the world."

Facial recognition "is likely to encroach" on fingerprint identification's market, the report says, but is not yet accurate enough to be "widely deployed for access control," the report states.

The report warns that a lack of standards has hampered interoperability between competing fingerprint identification systems. But standards are being developed, and in the future, developers who do not adhere to those standards "will be effectively closed out of government-sector applications," the report says.