*** Incredible. Let me off at the next stop. CMR ***
For technologies that
were once considered creepy, the public is making concessions: Most people are
willing to share biometric information with government agencies if it would in
some way improve their travel experience, according to a survey released June 24 by Accenture. More
specifically, of the 3,000 respondents in six countries (the U.S., U.K.,
France, Germany, Japan and Australia), 87 percent agreed to such use with
varying degrees of confidence.
These results were
startling, said Mark Crego, managing director for Accenture Border and Identity
Services, adding that people are especially willing to share biometric
information when it comes to improving security.
“It seems there’s been
a huge change in public opinion and that people are much more willing to use
biometrics as they have in the past," he said, "particularly if …
they can feel more secure, they can see a national security increase, where
they see benefits to themselves and where it doesn’t take any more time to get
through the borders."
Globally, 62 percent
of respondents said they would be willing to participate in a biometrics
program if it made their borders more secure, 56 percent said they would
participate if it made travel more convenient, and 58 percent said they would
participate if it made travel faster.
Perception vs. Reality
Survey results also showed
an inverse relationship between willingness of the public to participate in
such programs and a nation’s actual biometric adoption. In Germany, for
instance, 23 percent of respondents reported they had shared biometric
information before -- the highest of all countries participating in the survey
-- but they were also the least willing to participate in biometrics by a
margin of about 10 percent when compared with the U.S., the country most
willing to participate. Similarly, Germany has a fingerprint biometric included
in its passports, while the U.S. has not yet opted to include any biometric
data in its passports.
“While the
survey reveals one thing in terms of public perception, the realities of public
policy may be a little bit different,” Crego said, adding that through his work
at Accenture, he's noticed several trends in technology that may contribute to
the changing sentiment around biometrics, the first being exposure.
As consumer devices
like the iPhone 5, which contain fingerprint scanning capabilities, become more
common, people become comfortable with the idea of biometric technology.
Scanning a thumb on an iPhone is practice for giving the government the same
information later.
In other cases, Crego
said, making people comfortable with the technology can be as simple as
changing one small detail. “There is a program that we’ve been managing for the
last 10 years, for which I was the chief architect, and one of the things we
did on that program was we changed the way people capture fingerprints for
civilian purposes,” Crego said. “The device itself had a red color on the
fingerprint scanner, so it kind of scared people.”
They wanted to make
the device more friendly, so with FBI approval, they changed the color of the
scanner light from red to green, Crego said, and that made a big difference.
“That device, which only required about 3,000 units for the U.S. border, has
sold more than 200,000 units across all companies worldwide,” he said. “And
it’s radically changed the way civilian fingerprint capture is done. We found
that if you’re willing to make it friendly, people are willing to use the
biometrics.”
Through programs like
the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Visitor and Immigrant
Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) and facial recognition scanners at
airports throughout Europe, Accenture saw increased travel speeds, Crego said,
and that’s the kind of result that leads to public acceptance and willingness
for adoption. In the U.S., 64 percent of respondents said they would be willing
to participate in a frequent flier program in which they underwent a background
check – these high levels of acceptance were completely unexpected, Crego said.
Making Biometrics a
Reality
Despite a willingness
to participate, as shown by the survey, the U.S. is lagging in biometrics
adoption, said Avivah Litan, Gartner analyst. “I think companies underestimate
how much consumers want more security and of course there’s convenience,” Litan
said. “But a lot of banks are afraid to ask consumers to download software or to
enroll in biometrics. They think people don’t want to be bothered, they think
it’s imposing. And I think this study shows that consumers will go an extra
mile for better security, which in most cases offers more convenience.”
It is, however, rather
difficult to get people enrolled in biometric programs, she added, but cases
are popping up more and more. Several banks now use voice recognition as part
of their fraud detection process while authenticating customers over the phone.
And since the public is
willing to accept biometrics as witnessed by this survey, Litan says it’s time
for adoption, because nothing else is working that well. “The bad guys have
figured out how to counterfeit documents," she said, "and there’s a
great need for authentication everywhere, not just in airports, but across the
Web and in all our interactions."
Colin
Wood | Staff Writer
Colin has been writing
for Government Technology since 2010. He lives in Seattle with his wife
and their dog. He can be reached at cwood@govtech.com and on Google+.
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