The state of biometrics: Where your peers are going all in

Less than a decade ago, you would’ve been hard-pressed to find a handful of your peers relying on biometrics like fingerprint scanners and facial recognition for business and security purposes. But times have changed.

Nearly two-thirds of your peers (62%) now use biometrics for a variety of business and security purposes, most often employee access. And another 24% say they will in the next two years.

Those yardsticks come from the folks at IT network firm Spiceworks.

So what are they using and how are they using it? Here’s an idea.

The tools they’re tapping

As for what type of tools they’re tapping, compare your approach against this:

• fingerprint scanners (57%)
• facial recognition (14%)
• hand geometry recognition (5%)
• iris scanning (3%)
• voice recognition (2%), and
• palm-vein recognition (2%).

How it plays out at work

Of course biometric technology is no small investment, which is why many of your peers have chosen the most cost-effective route: smartphones.

That’s the top way companies use biometrics for authentication, with 46% of companies going that route.

It’s followed by laptops (25%), tablets (22%) and time clock systems (17%).

But beware: Many experts say that while incorporating biometrics into a security plan is a smart move, you’ll never want to rely solely on it.

Instead it makes an excellent part of two-factor authentication, for example.