Many consumers have been using some form of biometrics on their smartphones in their personal lives for several years. Now a new survey indicates that 70% of them want to use biometrics at work, too.

The "Biometric Consumer Sentiment Survey," released by Veridium today, is based on responses from 1,000 US adults who have experience using biometrics to log into accounts. Respondents cited speed (35%), not having to remember passwords (33%), and security (31%) as the main reasons for looking favorably on biometric authentication.

"What's clear is that passwords have not evolved," says James Stickland, CEO of Veridium. "They have only grown more complex and confusing, so we're finding that consumers want to move the experience they've had with biometrics to the workplace."

George Avetisov, CEO of HYPR, says biometrics in the workplace will start at the executive level, with smartphones for top execs, and work its way down to the rank-and-file staff.

"We've seen this with deployments at financial institutions," Avetisov says. "On the consumer side, we're seeing large financial companies looking to use biometrics in the payments arena for their customers." 

Acceptance Takes Time
Though companies began introducing biometrics into the authentication process decades ago, consumers first started using it on a wider scale when biometrics were installed on smartphones, Stickland says. The Motorola Atrix 4F was the first phone to include a fingerprint sensor, made available to consumers in 2011.

Today, consumers routinely use a mix of fingerprint and facial recognition technology on their  iPhones (68%), Android phones (25%), laptops (12%), tablets (11%), and smart speakers (5%), the Veridium survey found.

Respondents also indicated their most preferred form of biometric identification on their phones is the fingerprint, at 63%. It ranked way ahead of other forms of identification, such as facial recognition (14%), traditional passwords and PINs (8%), and voice recognition (2%).

Broken down by generation, Millennials most value speed (46%), Generation X most value not having to remember passwords (44%), and Baby Boomers most value security (30%).

"We've also found that there’s an ever-growing crowd of people who support eliminating the password," Stickland says.

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