Fed up with passwords and bad onboardings, consumers consider biometrics

Biometric authentication is increasingly attractive to U.S. consumers, according to a vendor-sponsored report.

Facial and fingerprint recognition are preferable than multifactor authentication, and are far more attractive than passwords.

According to a new survey (registration) fielded by digital identity firm ForgeRock, 31 percent of U.S. respondents are using biometric authentication, and 43 percent would prefer it.

The report looks at turn-offs people experience when onboarding and logging into applications. Respondents lived in the UK, Germany, Singapore, Australia and the United States.

Eleven percent of survey takers reported using multifactor authentication today, while 13 percent said they prefer to use it. That is not a strong signal, but it is better than how passwords are faring.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents type their authentication, but only 43 percent would prefer to use passwords.

Most of the U.S. numbers track with global averages, according to the report, with the exception of biometrics use. Globally, more people are using face or fingerprint biometrics (42 percent), and more people would prefer it (57 percent) compared to other authentication tools.

The report’s authors tried to compare authentication problems with others that people face today.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said forgetting their logon credentials is more annoying than forgetting their mask at home or getting to the story only to find there has been a run on toilet paper.

That example might be a bit glib, but the sponsored survey results are not inconsequential. People are, to varying degrees, easily irritated by clunky registration processes and by getting locked out of an app or service at login.

Around the world, Gen Z — 18 to 24 years old — seems to have had it up to here with access frustration. A third of them say they will drop an app or service and go to a competitor if their login is irritating. And 37 percent say they will delete their account outright if the app is a pain.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  consumer adoption  |  digital identity  |  facial recognition  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  ForgeRock  |  onboarding  |  online authentication