ABI: Security Biometrics Spending to Reach $7.3B in 2013

August 25, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS

Interest in biometrics was kick-started by the new wave of terrorism in the early years of this decade, analysts said, but it has taken time to lead into sales and adoption.

In the meantime, the biometrics vendors and the system integrators that have led the way in biometrics deployments have worked hard to prove the value and efficiency of the technology, as well as to enable multi-technology, multi-vendor capabilities.

"Over the next five years, the effort to create standards for biometrics technologies will be rewarded with a significant growth in biometrics system adoption," said Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI Research.

Growth will be driven by increased emphasis on security in both the public and private sectors, analysts said, but it will be underpinned by a raft of technology standards that have enabled more interoperable systems to emerge.

Face, iris, hand and speech recognition systems have emerged and are being adopted independently and alongside fingerprints, which will continue be the dominant biometric measurement for some time to come, analysts said.

Nevertheless, it will be increasingly essential for organizations and companies, as they secure their facilities, equipment and data, to understand the potential of each of these technologies, as well as the potential to combine them to drive system efficiency and reliability.

There is also an emerging interest in biometrics as the means toward greater convenience, simplicity and speed in the transactions of daily life. Analysts said biometrics is being offered in laptops and mobile phones to secure but also speed and simplify log-in, while "registered traveler" applications are emerging to speed passengers through airports.

Analysts said biometrics will increasingly move from being the traditional preserve of large-scale public sector systems to adoption in small-scale private sector and even personal systems use.

Source: ABI Research.