CBS Market Watch

In your face: Many consumers willing to submit to biometric scans

January 8, 2003
By Kristen Gerencher

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - The use of fingerprint, retina and facial scans for routine commercial transactions is fast approaching and Americans seem more than prepared to give up their biometric impressions, a new survey suggests.

Consumers will trust companies with new forms of their personal information as long as firms stick to basic privacy safeguards, according to a survey of more than 1,000 people by SEARCH, a national consortium of criminal justice agencies, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics and Privacy & American Business, an independent think tank.

While few consumers have experience with biometric identifiers, which range from finger or hand scanning to voice-recognition technologies, many say it's acceptable for companies to request such methods for a variety of transactions, the study found.

"The results show the public doesn't consider this invasive," said Alan Westin, president of Privacy and American Business. "Especially the finger imaging is not seen as the kind of thing people would feel upset about."

Nine out of 10 said biometric screens were acceptable to check the identity of a gun buyer against a database of convicted felons, and consumers also approved biometrics in the following applications, according to the study:

• Verifying the identity of customers making credit card purchases - 85 percent
• Withdrawing funds from an ATM -- 78 percent
• Accessing sensitive files, such as medical or financial - 77 percent
• Conducting background checks - 76 percent
• Screening out those banned from gambling or professional card counters in casinos -- 56 percent

Hungry for convenience

Said Trevor Prout, marketing director for the International Biometric Group, a consulting and technology firm in New York.

"We have seen an increase over the last few years in people's willingness to use these technologies in things like accessing their computers, expediting travel processes," he said. "The fact that people are more open to them reflects greater awareness of the technologies."

Consumers' apparent enthusiasm for biometric identifiers also may be based on a belief that new systems are more effective in fighting identity fraud, said Chris Hoofnagle, deputy counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"A lot of consumers might say 'I would like it if I could just put my thumb on the scanner,' but consumers would not like these technologies if the weaknesses were exposed in greater detail," he said.

While generally effective in smaller populations, broader use of biometrics may actually result in less security, he said. "If I can masquerade with your biometric, you can never be issued a new one."

Public optimism also may stem from a lack of experience with the new systems' pitfalls, he said.

"Most of their experience with them has been through the movies where they're portrayed as reliable and infallible, but the reality is there are problems from enrollment," Hoofnagle said. "Some people can't enroll. Sometimes their fingerprints are too faint or worn over the years. There will be significant frustration when there are false rejections or false positives."

Still, consumers were cognizant of the privacy tradeoffs they may be making. Eighty-six percent said consumers should be fully informed about the uses an organization will make of their biometric ID and why it is needed, the survey said. About the same amount said companies shouldn't use the data for any purpose other than that they originally disclosed.

Even so, companies often change their policies, Hoofnagle said. "We've seen a number of businesses, even mainstream businesses, renege on promises regarding how they'll deal with personal information," he said. "Ebay, for instance, has changed its privacy policy to the detriment of consumer."

To be sure, the study didn't ask whether consumers considered the technologies to be accurate, Westin said. "At the moment, there's not a lot of real world exp that people are drawing on."

Who's going high tech

Among the companies rolling out biometric technologies to their customers, Charles Schwab is using voice scan for account access over the telephone and Disney World subjects its annual pass holders to a two-finger geometry scanner at the entrance gate, the study said.

About 10 million people have used a biometric scan, almost twice as many as had used one before Sept. 11, Westin said.

Fingerprinting technologies comprise the lion's share of the $600 million biometric industry with vendors such as AuthenTec, Bioscrypt, DigitalPersona, Identix, Fujitsu, SecuGen and ST Micr, Prout said. Facial recognition companies such as Identix, Viisage and Imagis contribute $34 million, while hand geometry from brings in about $28 million of the industry total.