Public Sector IT Professionals Embracing Biometric Tech for Data Protection: Report

Public service IT professionals are embracing biometric and analytics technologies in anticipation of significant benefits in data and privacy protection, suggests a new report from Accenture. Based on a survey of 774 such individuals across nine countries in North America, Europe, and the APAC region, the report is entitled “Emerging Technologies in Public Service“.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they are either deploying or considering the implementation of biometric technologies. The industrial sector is most interested in such technologies, with a 51 percent adoption rate, while respondents from social security and pension agencies reported a 48 percent adoption rate. Border agencies reported only a 36 percent adoption rate, but that trend also appears to now be taking flight as the US Customs and Border Protection agency tests out biometric airport screening systems.

Looking at regional attitudes, the report found that American respondents were most likely to agree that biometric technologies could improve data protection, at 51 percent; while respondents in Japan were on the opposite end of the spectrum, at 12 percent. Australia and Singapore, meanwhile, reported a 68 percent adoption rate for biometric technologies; accordingly, respondents from these same countries put data privacy and security among their top concerns, at 59 and 51 percent respectively, suggesting the IT professionals see biometric technologies as real solutions to the issue.

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August 9, 2017 – by Alex Perala