UK consumers most open to biometrics: Ping Identity survey

Around one third of consumers (34 percent) globally are open to passwordless logins, including text and email confirmations, multi-factor authentication and biometrics, new research from Ping Identity shows.

The U.S.-based identity and access management company conducted two surveys covering almost 13,000 consumers from six European countries, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

The findings show that consumers are most open to other authentication methods like two-factor authentication (2FA, 26 percent) and biometrics (24 percent) for personal banking and insurance. Consumers in the UK turn out to be the most open towards biometrics.

Not every biometric feature, however, was equally popular: Voice recognition (18 percent) and “retina” scans (15 percent) were the least favorable method globally for passwordless login alongside QR codes.

Ping Identity’s survey also uncovered other insights on consumer attitudes towards online logins, digital identity and their data.

A large majority of 81 percent say that ease of use is important to them: Around two thirds (65) percent would switch to a comparable brand if it offered passwordless authentication while a similar number (60 percent) have stopped using an account or online service because they became frustrated with the login process.

Only one in ten of the surveyed consumers said they fully trust organizations managing their identity data, but the most trusted organizations are banks (61 percent) and healthcare services (51 percent). The majority is concerned with identity theft (63 percent) while almost as many (54 percent) are worried that AI may be used to impersonate them.

Despite these worries, 59 percent report that their primary method of storing passwords is simply by remembering them. Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of consumers are confident that their passwords are safe. That same group, however, admitted to only using three unique passwords across multiple logins. The poorest password hygiene was reported by 12 percent of respondents, who said they use the same password for everything.

A majority of respondents (57 percent) said they would support a single government-issued digital ID. Globally, consumers are open to some online platforms implementing an identity verification requirement. Less than 45 percent are fine with social networks verifying their identity, while dating apps received an even lower score of 29 percent.

Ping is being merged with ForgeRock, and has continued adding biometrics providers to its platform.

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  consumer adoption  |  digital identity  |  passwordless authentication  |  Ping Identity  |  UK