Frost & Sullivan: Advances in Biometrics Remedy the Need for Increased Security

LONDON - Security concerns in the present world continue to grow in intensity and
complexity. This opens the door to many opportunities within the European
biometrics market, which is expected to experience substantial growth in the
coming years despite the current economic downturn. Many of the common
identity management measures currently in place such as access cards,
employee IDs, password protection, personal identification numbers (PINs),
passports, and the like, can be forgotten, lost, disclosed, or changed.
Biometrics offers a more secure solution because it identifies an individual
through the unique physiological or behavioural patterns.

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According to Matia Grossi, Frost & Sullivan’s industry analyst, “The
market for biometrics products is going to almost triple by 2012 from its
2008 value.” As the level of security breaches and transaction fraud
increases, the need for enhanced, secure identification and personal
verification technologies increases proportionally. For these reasons, the
market for biometrics products in Europe is still growing despite the
economic downturn and is supported by governmental, banking, and commercial
initiatives. Currently, the governmental sector occupies 44.5% of the current
market share; however, an increasing number of biometric products are being
developed for commercial markets, particularly the financial, healthcare,
retail and educational sectors.

“The economic recession certainly affected the biometrics market;
however, large-scale deployment in government projects and the introduction
of biometrics as a time and attendance tool and as a new standard feature in
high-end applications have offered solace in these trying times,” says Matia
Grossi. “The biometrics market witnessed a dip of 10% in revenues in 2008,
but the announcement of new large-scale projects to counterbalance the
economic recession is expected to favourably impact the overall biometrics
market.”

“Historically, the adoption of biometrics has been concentrated in the
government sectors but since 2004, there has been a shift in dynamics in the
marketplace, with increasing demand from commercial markets, particularly
financial, health care, retail, and educational sectors for biometric
products,” adds Frost & Sullivan analyst, Suja Chellathurai. “The recent
inauguration of government identity management projects such as in border
control and passport applications in many Western European countries such as
the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden has boosted the growth
of biometrics market.”

Although many of the applications at the moment centre around fingerprint
based technologies, there are multiple established and emerging solutions
that are finding their space in the market. Established technologies that are
gaining momentum include face recognition - both 2 Dimensional (2D) and 3
Dimensional (3D), iris scans, hand geometry, vascular scans (palm vein
scans), and retina scans. Upcoming physiological technologies include
skinprints, earlobe scans, brain fingerprints, and DNA recognition.
Technologies based on behavioural patterns, such as voice recognition,
signature scans, keyboard and mouse patterns, gait (walk patterns), and body
odour recognition are also in the development process.

Fingerprint technology is the most established and widespread form of
biometrics. It is used extensively for both physical and logical access
control by governmental and corporate entities and has a wide range of uses
in law enforcement. It is also used by the banking and finance industry to
prevent identity fraud in online banking and at ATM cash points. The main
advantages of fingerprint technology are that it is the most economical
biometric technology and its small storage space, reduced power requirements,
and resistive nature to temperature and background lighting make it an ideal
technology to be deployed in a range of logical and physical access
environments. Its major disadvantages are that this technology cannot enrol
elderly people, manual labourers, and certain ethnic and demographic groups
due to their low-quality fingerprints and hygienic concerns. Fingerprint
technology is anticipated to be deployed in a broader scale in the upcoming
future.

The prevalence of other biometrics technologies is also expected to grow.
Iris, retina and vascular scans have proven to be the most accurate, but also
the most expensive. The trend towards implementing two or more authentication
methods (bimodal or multimodal biometrics) is on the rise. Many EU countries
such as Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary,
Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Serbia, Slovakia and UK, have been issuing
ePassports since 2006 which bear automated facial recognition and intend to
support automated fingerprint recognition by the end of 2009. Bimodal and
multimodal biometrics are expected to become standard in high-end
applications in government, border control and airport security by 2020.

Technologies still in the nascent stages of development are showing great
potential. DNA biometrics in particular has huge potential for large-scale
applications in the next 15 to 20 years. According to Matia Grossi: “The
integration of iris and retina recognition biometric systems and 2D and 3D
face recognition systems are anticipated to gain wide adoption in the next
seven to ten years with their low error rates. Multimodal biometrics such as
fingerprint, face, and iris are expected to become the standard biometric for
high-end applications in government, border control and airport security by
2020.” The merger and acquisition of various biometric vendors stand as proof
of this trend. Clear indicators of this are the large number of mergers and
acquisitions observed on the market in the recent years.

If you would like to have more information about the Biometrics in Europe
and/or about Automatic Identification & Security please contact Joanna
Lewandowska at joanna.lewandowska@frost.com. Please include your company
name, query and contact information.

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GIL 2009: Europe

Frost & Sullivan has expanded its flagship Global Congress on Corporate
Growth - GIL Global - into several major cities around the world including
London. For the first time ever in Europe, Frost & Sullivan will be hosting
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Contact:
Joanna Lewandowska
Corporate Communications - Europe
P: +48-22-390-41-46
E: joanna.lewandowska@frost.com

Source: Frost & Sullivan

Joanna Lewandowska, Corporate Communications - Europe, Frost & Sullivan, +48-22-390-41-46, joanna.lewandowska at frost.com. Photo: https://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081117/FSLOGO