Smartphone makers favour face biometrics over fingerprint – Technologist

Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, and LG are driving face recognition applications in consumer electronics as face biometrics apps are expected to boast an impressive 26.9% 5-year CAGR growth until 2024. Despite this increased attention by smartphone markers ABI Research says fingerprint sensors will continue to experience healthy growth with an estimated 1.26 billion fingerprint sensors to be shipped in 2019.

End-users certainly have a lot of biometric upgrades to look forward to in the coming years including the incorporation of an “invisible, in-glass” fingerprint sensor for smartphones, a more streamlined approach to iris recognition, as well as more accurate behavioural recognition.

However, one particular implementation seems to be more delayed than initially expected: biometrically embedded payment cards with fingerprint sensors are off to rough start.

“We have seen all relevant actors and market innovators making all necessary preparations during the last 3 years – educating the public regarding battery-less fingerprint-embedded cards, technologies that allow energy harvesting from nearby terminals, meticulous conformity to EMV specifications, and even addressing issues like tamper-resistant integrated circuits for additional protection of any biometric data contained therein,” commented Dimitrios Pavlakis, Industry Analyst at ABI Research.

Pavlakis added that although most of the supporting technology has indeed reached critical mass there are still a few pricing and operational issues that currently keep many projects in the pilot phase.

However, credit card companies like MasterCard and Visa, market leaders like Gemalto, IDEMIA, and FPC and innovative market entrants like IDEX, NEXT Biometrics, Zwipe, and Smartmatic are currently some of the main actors expected to lead this biometric evolution in the near future. Fingerprint sensor embedded payment cards are expected to experience significant growth from 2021 onwards.

The automotive industry is also ripe for a user security upgrade with biometric applications set to increase significantly through 2024. These applications include merging leading modalities like face, fingerprint, voice and iris with ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), health monitoring, and user customization.

Advanced analytics and machine vision coupled with face recognition and surveillance, iris recognition in governmental and civil applications, and even biometrically-enhanced cryptocurrency wallets are some of the enticing new applications expected to keep biometric automotive technologies in the spotlight in the coming years.