In the latest report from Acuity Market Intelligence, titled The Global Biometrics and Mobility Report: The Convergence of Commerce and Privacy, Maxine Most – Acuity’s principal – dedicates the preface to a notable accomplishment that she shared with FindBiometrics. In February 2011, Most and FindBiometrics president Peter O’Neill participated in an NDA conference panel, “Future of Biometrics,” and together predicted the mobile biometrics revolution.
The preface asserts that before Apple had even acquired AuthenTec, a move considered by many to be the first major step toward widespread consumer biometric adoption, Most and O’Neill both focused their presentations on mobility as the future of our industry.
Possibly the most prescient details of the NDA panel presentations in question (Both of which are available in a FindBiometrics Webinar) is how specifically accurate they turned out to be. O’Neill and Most both put the burden on Apple to commercialize fingerprint sensors, and Most’s slideshow illustration of possible mobile biometrics applications is still accurate today as we are beginning to see actual deployments in healthcare, border control, finance, law enforcement and more.
Most does frame this prescience as an accomplishment, but primarily she uses it to underline how quickly the mobile biometrics revolution has taken hold. Only four years after that panel, during which an attendee said it couldn’t be done, and already Apple Pay – a biometrics enabled mobile wallet – is competing with PayPal as a preferred method of consumer financial transaction.
The report itself continues to predict a bright future for mobile biometrics. Acuity sets the mobile biometrics market at $1.6 billion in 2014, and predicts that it will grow at a rate of approximately 67 percent CAGR. By 2020, Acuity predicts that the market will hit $34.6 billion, with biometrics included on 100 percent of all smartphones.
—
June 29, 2015 – by Peter B. Counter
Follow Us