Biometric authentication adoption slowed in UK by privacy and UX concerns, Nomidio suggests

A new report commissioned by passwordless solutions firm Nomidio revealed a trend of distrust towards biometric authentication in the UK caused by unintuitive UX and privacy concerns.

Carried out by Opinium in August 2020 using an online tool, the survey asked 1,000 consumers from the UK and revealed that only 14 percent of them were frequently using biometric authentication to log-in to digital services, websites, or accounts.

When asked about the reasons for these low-adoption rates, roughly a third of them answered they were worried about their biometric information falling in the wrong hands, or being sold by identity providers.

“Consumers are switched on, the loss of biometric identifiers and the risk an identity provider might sell or mine behavioral data are very real”, said Ben Todd, Head of Worldwide Sales at Nomidio, commenting on the news.

“At Nomidio we use advanced, nation-state level encryption to tackle these issues head-on. We couldn’t sell your data even if we wanted to, because it is so well encrypted even we can’t see it. Only our users can decrypt their data,” Todd added.

UX-related worries also were mentioned in the survey, with 71 percent of respondents confessing that having to download multiple apps in order to authenticate with biometrics would deter them from doing so.

Despite these figures, however, more than half (57 percent)of those surveyed said biometrics would make online authentication faster.

Moreover, a majority of 54 percent and 53 percent respectively said it would make online log-ins easier and more secure.

This data reveals a struggle in adoption that is not inherently connected to biometric technologies per se, but rather the format and platforms through which they are offered to the public.

“Biometric authentication is still emerging and if we want consumers and employees to make the step-up, we must deliver solutions that provide a ‘Netflix style’ user experience, explained Philip Black, Commercial Director at Nomidio.

“If I can’t log-in because my biometric ID is tied to my phone and it’s lost, stolen, or out of battery, I might just stick with a password.”

Article Topics

access management  |  biometric data  |  biometrics  |  consumer adoption  |  data protection  |  digital identity  |  Nomidio  |  online authentication  |  privacy