Adopting biometric authentication can improve levels of customer satisfaction and enhance account security. That’s the message from ‘Biometrics: Key to Customer Satisfaction and Combating AI-Generated Fraud’.
The research, compiled by the International Data Corporation (IDC), found that consumers with high levels of biometrics exposure typically report higher satisfaction with the authentication process. In many of the sectors surveyed by ICD, enabling biometric authentication brought significant increases in reported levels of customer satisfaction.
However, the research also found that while customer satisfaction levels with biometrics are generally high, there remains a small subset of consumers who continue to have concerns and do not fully understand or accept its usage.
Download the complete IDC InfoBrief now
Understanding user fears around biometrics
Where customers have concerns, they are most often rooted in either a lack of trust or a lack of confidence in the technology.
Those concerns center around two main misconceptions: (1) That biometrics can be easily spoofed; (2) That once it’s obtained, companies will be able to keep users’ fingerprints, voice or facial biometric data, and that it will inevitably be accessible to hackers.
The reality is that modern biometric solutions are safe, powerful tools for tackling fraud, and consumers find using them a more convenient and positive experience.
Just one in twenty of those surveyed for the research reported struggling with biometrics. That compares with one in three respondents who complained that having to remember multiple usernames and passwords was their biggest authentication headache.
Forty-six percent of consumers regularly use biometric authentication to log in to their bank accounts online. Against this backdrop, legacy solutions risk being seen as an unreliable inconvenience and an outdated mode of authentication.
Biometric authentication: the future of user security and satisfaction
One in four respondents to the IDC’s consumer survey said they had one of their online accounts hacked and taken over. With rates of account takeover fraud so high, consumers and organizations are quite right to be cautious of risks and vigilant about account takeover threats.
More than a third of respondents to the survey said that due to an unsatisfactory resolution, they had switched to another service. Customer loyalty and trust in institutions are also damaged when fraudsters get through defenses.
Biometric methods are a means to make authentication more secure and straightforward, and protect organizations from the financial and reputational harm wrought by account takeover fraud – without the need for complicated passwords that are often forgotten or can be targeted by criminals.
Modern biometric authentication capabilities include advanced security measures, such as action-based factors, that protect against deepfakes, and improved matching algorithms that make it much harder to spoof biometrics scans.
Biometric data is not stored as images or audio files, either, meaning that, despite fears biometrics might be retained by organizations and stolen by criminals, they are not accessible to hackers. In reality, biometric records are converted into distinct templates of ones and zeros that cannot be decrypted by any third parties.
Education: the key to increased biometric uptake
A robust awareness-raising effort is required by service providers to help increase consumer confidence in biometric authentication, with an emphasis on the many benefits that include reduced fraud, frustration and friction in user journeys.
Education initiatives focused on allaying fears about biometrics will help to increase trust in their technological capabilities and safety, and will be crucial as the market increasingly grapples with challenges such as AI-generated deepfakes.
For consumers fed up with having to remember login details and reset forgotten passwords, and who are fearful of breaches of their account security, the message is that is that there is a secure, safe and straightforward solution: biometric authentication.