Biometrics - The Biometrics Market

As biometric technologies have grown more sophisticated and affordable, they have found ever more markets to penetrate. Governmental applications remained the most common at the end of the 20th century, as governments sought to safeguard their sensitive computer networks. But the private sector was adopting the technology at an accelerating rate. Total industry sales were expected to jump from $100 million in 2000 to $600 million by 2006, according to the International Biometrics Industry Association (IBIA), while the International Biometric Group forecast sales of $600 million as early as 2003.

An area that drew intense demand for tight security using biometric devices was online and networked finance, including automatic teller machines (ATMs), electronic record keeping, and e-commerce. As e-commerce grows, so will the number of PCs and handheld computing devices with embedded biometrics system and smart-card readers. Indeed, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, NEC Technologies, DataStrip, and IBM built such security systems into their newer models in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Some machines came outfitted complete with barcode readers and fingerprint readers along with smart-card slots.

Biometrics manufacturers may find their gold mine in the expansion of e-commerce. Smart cards, outfitted with embedded microprocessor chips that can store biometric data as well as personal identification numbers and other pieces of identification, can only be read by a smart card reader. Industry analysts expect them to prove more secure and reliable for making online purchases, accessing bank accounts, and entering secured networks. While the European Smart Card Industry Association (ESCIA) of Brussels, Belgium, reported that only a fraction of the 1.4 billion smart card shipments in 1999 were in the United States, Frost & Sullivan expected U.S. shipments to skyrocket from 14.4 million in 1999 to 114.7 million in 2006. Moreover, the ESCIA predicted that about 30 percent of all online transactions would be based on smart cards by 2005. With more powerful encryption technologies for encoding the sensitive information embedded in smart cards, consumers were expected to feel more at ease making such transactions with biometrics devices online.