Biometric technologies - Statistics & Facts

Biometrics: use cases and market size

As technology advances, the use of biometrics has changed from primarily criminal identification to a wide range of everyday tasks, such as unlocking a smartphone. It is estimated that in 2020, 80 percent of active phones in North America, Western Europe, and the Asia Pacific have enabled biometrics. Apart from functioning as digital identities, biometrics are also widely used in border control/security and many other applications. Ever wider applications of biometric technologies will help boost the total market size - global spending on biometric solutions and services is forecast to increase rapidly, reaching 68.6 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.

Different technologies

Examples of biometric technologies include facial, voice, and iris recognition, as well as automated fingerprint identification and signature verification. The global facial recognition market is forecast to reach 8.5 billion U.S. dollars by 2025. However, it is a relatively small market compared to the voice recognition market which is projected to reach a size of over 27 billion U.S. dollars by 2026.

Leading players

The French company Thales Group is one of the major players in the biometrics market. Thales’ “Digital identity & security” segment, created in 2018 as a result of the acquisition of the digital security company Gemalto, brought in revenue of almost three billion U.S. dollars in 2020. Another French company IDEMIA is a provider of identity-related security services and has a big focus on biometrics solutions, both for private companies and governments. IDEMIA's annual sales amounted to 2.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2019.

Trends and concerns

The use of biometrics for digital identity is the most significant development that is shaping the industry currently and in the near future. While the technology helps increase security and convenience in many ways, it does create some new risks. The aspects of biometrics that the public is most concerned with are the use of biometric data as a means to mass surveillance and the risk of misidentifications. The advantages seem to heavily outweigh the fears, driving revenues and usage rates higher every year, and software developers engage widely with biometric technologies to continue developing newer applications and solutions. Overall, biometric technology has established itself as an integral security feature in a world that is becoming more digital every day, and hence requires increasingly advanced methods of securing and accessing information.

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