Spiceworks Survey Points to Evolution of Biometrics in the Enterprise

“Spiceworks found that 62 percent of its respondents said their organizations use biometric authentication, and 24 percent said they were planning to implement it within the next two years.”

More than half of businesses in North America and Europe are now using biometric authentication, and its use will increase substantially over the next couple of years, suggest that results of a recent Spiceworks survey.

Spiceworks polled 492 of the IT professionals using its networking platform and the survey results seem to point to larger trends in the enterprise sector. Spiceworks found that 62 percent of its respondents said their organizations use biometric authentication, and 24 percent said they were planning to implement it within the next two years. Fifty-seven percent pointed to fingerprint recognition as the modality being used for such authentication (with Apple’s Touch ID system being the most common embodiment of that), while facial recognition came in second at 14 percent.

While those results point to a broader enthusiasm about biometric security in the enterprise sector, others point to a persistent skepticism about the technology. Half of Spiceworks’ respondents acknowledged that biometrics are more secure than password-based authentication systems, but only 10 percent believe they are strong enough to act as the sole means of authentication. And almost 60 percent said there needs to be more transparency about how biometric data is stored.

Those are healthy questions to ask. With the case for biometric authentication now stronger than ever, it’s clear that many IT professionals are ready to delve into the complexities of not if but how biometrics should be used, and that attitude should ultimately lead to stronger security for end users.

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March 15, 2018 – by Alex Perala