Digital ID, law enforcement trends ratchet up biometrics education’s importance: survey

The 2025 Industry Survey from the Biometrics Institute is out, revealing a shifting market landscape that could make responsible and ethical biometrics use even more critical.

More than 200 professionals in the biometrics industry from around the world responded to questions on present and future use of the technology in July for the survey.

They report a noteworthy increase in biometrics adoption amongst police and law enforcement bodies. They also say that digital identity and AI are the top anticipated areas for future development, and point to a coming shift in national identity programs as an important development for the market. A common thread throughout those use cases is the need to increase trust.

The Industry Survey follows on the heels of the Institute’s 2025 Concepts and Solutions Report, released in July. The Concepts and Solutions Report considers emerging technologies and their potential impact on society from the biometrics provider perspective.

Practical insights into addressing the growing demand for transparency and accountability in biometric systems are examined across 30 real-world use cases in the report.

The Institute’s work on supporting responsible biometrics use range from its Three Laws of Biometrics to a call just weeks ago for improved standards for facial recognition in Australia.

The Biometrics Institute emphasizes the relevance of the reference materials it has published to the challenges raised in the survey. The updated version of the Institute’s Privacy Guidelines, for example, can help organizations address the challenge of deepfakes, as well as other privacy issues raised in the report.

Education is another major theme of the survey, with 84 percent saying public acceptance of biometrics will take education beyond the community of professionals and insiders that make up the Institute’s membership (and Biometric Update’s readership).

The recently-released Fundamentals of Biometrics is a complementary online course designed for people outside of the community of professional biometrics practitioners.

The Institute has a well-established track record of advocating for responsible biometrics use, including the Procurement Guidelines it published in June. The Biometrics Institute also hosts the On the Pulse Conversation series of events to keep industry professionals abreast of the latest developments in the field.

On the AI front, deepfakes are a major threat to the future of biometrics, 85 percent of respondents agree. This is also one of the reasons biometrics pros see multimodal biometrics increasing more than any individual modality over the next few years.

Biometrics Institute Concepts and Solutions Report

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Biometrics Institute  |  digital ID  |  facial recognition  |  responsible biometrics