ID Crypt Global research reveals 145% boost in revenue over the past year alone.

New research from digital identity security specialists, ID Crypt Global, reveals that the global biometric systems market has seen a 145% boost in revenue over the past year alone, but what real-world applications are driving this impressive growth?

Biometrics as a form of digital identity is rapidly becoming central to our digital security. ID Crypt analysed what applications the technology is already being used for, what it’ll be tasked with doing in the near future, and how the biometric systems market is growing as a result.

The most recent data shows that the global biometric systems market generated an estimated total revenue of £55.7 billion in 2022. This marks annual growth of 145% since 2021 when revenue totalled £22.7 billion – which was itself a 2.25% increase on 2020 revenue.

The facial recognition sector alone generated revenues of £4.1 billion in 2022. This is 14% higher than 2021, following growth of 29% on the previous year.

The voice recognition market also generated revenue of £4.1 billion in 2022 after enjoying annual growth of 14%. But unlike facial recognition which has seen two years of continued growth, 2022’s revenue growth for the voice recognition market was a welcome recovery after recording a sharp drop of -57% between 2020 and 2021.

ID Crypt Global looks at current applications

So, what’s driving this revenue growth in biometric systems?

First and foremost is the technology’s widespread application on smartphones and other digital devices such as tablets. In this field, biometrics, including facial recognition and fingerprints, are used to enable secure access to devices and the apps within them, providing a faster, easier, and more secure alternative to passwords.

Border control is also making good use of biometric systems as a way of mitigating ID abuse by using innovations such as facial and retina recognition in place of basic photo ID.

Even call centres are in on the act, using voice recognition to enable faster and more efficient ID verification for people who are calling to speak to their bank, energy provider, mortgage provider, and more

Biometric data is also being used in schools. Britain was the first nation to introduce the technology back in 2001 and now schools are making use of facial recognition, iris recognition, fingerprints, and even palm recognition. In this context, it’s mostly being used to replace the need for pupils to carry cash or bank cards, thus reducing instances of bullying and theft. Pupils can use biometric ID to buy food, make payments for school trips, access lockers, and even register their attendance.

Future applications

In the coming years, biometric data usage is going to become even more widespread and come to include the use of brain and heart signals, and even vein pattern recognition which is even more foolproof than fingerprints.

Future applications for this technology will include animal identification – replacing the need for tattoos to identify different species; healthcare systems such as prescription collection; and a whole new level of secure and speedy banking.

Potential dangers

The benefits of biometric systems are bountiful, but there are also some dangers that must be considered and, where possible, mitigated.

These dangers range from data breaches in which people’s highly sensitive biometric data could be stolen and used for nefarious means, to catastrophic system failures in which the intricate systems we come to rely on for storing and accessing our biometric data crash.

It’s also important to consider the cost of implementing biometric security features which is significantly higher than more traditional methods.

CEO and Founder of ID Crypt Global, Lauren Wilson-Smith, commented: “The increased usage of biometric data and systems is an inevitable and welcome advancement in ID security technology. However, biometric data should be seen as our ID and therefore we must limit how many places have access to that data let alone store it.

Biometric data is best used when it unlocks a digital identity which can then be shared and cryptographically verified. This simple method of sharing data ensures that our biometric data remains private to us and linked to our identity – while delivering the same seamless experience we have come to expect from biometric authentication. This method also ensures that businesses who require our identity verification can do so without unnecessarily storing highly sensitive data.”

Data tables and sources can be viewed online, here.

More UK Security News.