With security paramount on their checklist, enterprises are increasingly eyeing new technology areas that can help tackle the growing complexity of the threat landscape. There has especially been a rise in demand for technologies in areas of secure identification and personal verification. This has resulted in biometrics gaining prominence among the newer security technologies. The global biometrics market is estimated to grow from $3.01 bn in 2007 to $7.41 bn in 2012, growing at a CAGR of 21.3%. As per Frost & Sullivan, in India specifically, the market size of biometric solutions for industrial applications is worth Rs 150 crore.

A Closer Look
Biometrics refers to the automated recognition of individuals based on their behavior and biological characteristics. The technology measures and analyzes human physical characteristics as well as behavioral characteristics for security purposes. Among the physical characteristics are eye retinas, facial patterns, and hand measurements, etc. Behavioral characteristics include signature, gait, etc. Some of the biometrics technology areas that exist today are fingerprints, voice recognition and verification, iris recognition, face recognition, hand morphology, dynamic signature, DNA identification, middleware, multi-modality, etc. In terms of usage, the global market is largely dominated by fingerprint identification, followed by facial recognition. According to the International Biometric Group (IBG), in 2006, fingerprint identification accounted for almost 44% of the market, followed by facial recognition at 19%, middleware at 11%, hand geometry at 9%, iris recognition at 7%, voice verification at 4%, signature verification at 2%, and multi-modal verification at 4%.

As per industry reports, fingerprint will continue to be the highest contributor to revenues. Worldwide, revenue from fingerprint biometrics is expected to grow from $1.3 bn in 2007 to $2.7 bn by 2012, a CAGR of 16.3% over the next five years. On the other hand, revenue contribution from face recognition is expected to go up from $459 mn in 2007 to $1.3 bn by 2012. Thereby, growing faster than the fingerprint segment, at a CAGR, of 23.8% over five years.

Key Verticals
While the Indian market is still nascent, its expected to be one of the growth markets of the future in terms of adoption. This is going to be driven by the need for more sophisticated, accurate, and robust security technologies to counter the increasingly complex threats. The potential market segments include banks, financial institutions, healthcare institutes, etc.

Globally, biometrics is finding its way into application areas like access control, attendance system, national ID, ePassports, consumer ID, and surveillance, with access control and attendance applications dominating the lot. Presently, commercial applications with consumer applications like access control for residential security are beginning to emerge. Within the worldwide commercial space as well, the corporate market is fairly nascent as compared to applications in sectors like defense, police, security agencies, and the government. Access control and attendance lead the way for biometrics applications in the enterprise segment. Future application areas include use of biometrics in e-commerce and access control to more devices other than laptops. This can include devices like mobile phones or assets like cars, etc. Using biometrics for restricted access to data is also going to gain prominence for the CIO.

One of the factors propelling the adoption of biometrics is the benefit that it has over other identification and verification technologies. Some of the other technologies available in the market include tokens and passwords, which have their own limitations like counterfeit and theft of tokens, or stealing and forgetting of passwords. In the case of biometrics these limitations are removed since security clearance is linked to the person himself. This makes it more accurate, secure, and fraud resistant as compared to the traditional identification and verification technologies available in the market.

Shipra Malhotra
shipram@cybermedia.co.in

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