The majority of consumers in the UK and the US believe financial services firms should adopt biometric authentication technology to combat identity theft and protect their personal data, according to research released by Unisys.
A massive 92% of UK consumers and 69% of US customers surveyed would prefer banks, credit card companies, healthcare providers and government organisations to use biometric technologies to verify personal identities, rather than other protection measures such as smart cards, security tokens, passwords and PINs.
Unisys says consumer mistrust of the current processes used to protect the security of personal information, as well as misgivings about security at major border crossings, has reached new highs.
As a result consumers now overwhelmingly want firms to use biometric technology to identify individuals through physical characteristics such as fingerprints, facial patterns and hand measurements, asserts Unisys.
The research is consistent with a British survey released by Unisys in March 2006 which found that two in three UK consumers believe that banks should be implementing biometric technology in order to protect consumers from identity theft.
Earlier this month a study commissioned by online security firm Truste and conducted by market information group TNS found that over half of US customers support the addition of biometric authentication information to credit and debit payment cards.