Continuous trust and infrastructure join AI as biometrics industry’s key concerns

The biometrics industry is scarcely recognizable compared to when the Biometrics Institute launched 25 years ago, or when its first industry survey ran in 2010. The issues the Institute’s members are most concerned about now still include governance. But many of the others, like AI and deepfakes, continuous biometric trust and identity infrastructure, were mostly theoretical or unfamiliar concepts a quarter-century ago.

The 2026 Industry Survey from the Biometrics Institute compiles feedback from 144 professionals from across the biometrics industry.

Embedded AI is the most important development of the last 12 months, 21 percent of industry professionals say. AI nearly doubled from 11 percent last year to top digital ID as the most important change for biometrics. Digital ID is the most significant development in biometrics use over the next 5 years according to 20 percent, just ahead of digital wallets and verifiable credentials and AI.

Continuous validation with combined biometric modalities is expected to increase significantly over the next few years, and deepfakes and synthetic media are now treated as an ongoing risk, with 61 percent saying the contest between deepfake attacks and defenses is permanent.

Industry recognition of the importance of trust and governance to adoption is reflected in the survey as well, with 54 percent naming privacy and data protection as the leading constraint on the market, followed by lack of public trust, which rose to 37 percent.

The emphasis respondents place on digital wallets, VCs and digital identity shows that focus is shifting toward identity infrastructure.

Biometrics Institute makes the full survey results available to members.

The Biometrics Institute will hold an online “On the Pulse Meeting” dedicated to biometric watchlists on September 30, and its annual Congress will be held in London, October 20 and 21.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Biometrics Institute  |  digital ID  |  digital trust  |  identity governance