Shift to Cloud-Based Biometrics is Coming: Acuity

“Proponents of on-device biometric authentication argue that server-side systems are vulnerable to breaches, but Most says these concerns ‘have been sensationalized.'”

Cloud-based biometric authentication is emerging as a key trend in digital services, argues a new white paper from Acuity Market Intelligence. The trend will be particularly important for financial services organizations, who ignore it “at their peril,” suggests Acuity principal analyst Maxine Most in a statement announcing the white paper.

That’s not to say that device-based biometric authentication is becoming less important; Acuity predicts that by 2022, 5.6 billion mobile devices will be used to biometrically verify 1.37 trillion transactions. But Most argues that on-device biometric authentication can only link a user to a particular device, whereas cloud-based biometric authentication links a user “to a Unique Verifiable Identity (UVI) that is device and platform independent”. Cloud-based biometrics can also be supported by the continuous, passive authentication offered by behavioral biometrics, Most notes.

—DOWNLOAD: “Taming the Authentication Beast: Simplifying and Enhancing the Customer Journey with Biometrics in the Cloud”—

It’s an argument that echoes a recent market forecast from Acuity in which the firm predicted that as early as 2018, the shift from on-device authentication to server-based systems will be well underway. Again, that’s not to suggest that mobile biometric authentication will be of diminishing importance, with the report also predicting that the mobile biometrics market will rise from $6.5 billion last year to $50.6 billion in 2022.

Proponents of on-device biometric authentication argue that server-side systems are vulnerable to breaches, but Most says these concerns “have been sensationalized.” Anti-spoofing technologies, anonymous storage, and “disaggregating biometrics from other Personally Identifiable Information (PII) – including templates from multiple biometric modalities” offer compelling countermeasures.

Acuity’s full white paper, “Taming the Authentication Beast: Simplifying and Enhancing the Customer Journey with Biometrics in the Cloud,” is available from Acuity’s website.

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September 20, 2017 – by Alex Perala