Skip to main content

Americans prefer a ‘password’ over a fingerprint

CrucialTec biometric fingerprint scanner 10 fingers
You can lead Americans towards greater digital security, but you can’t make them trust it. That, at least, appears to be the conclusion drawn from a new study from Yougov on behalf of U.S. email portal mail.com. The study involved more than 1,000 Americans over the age of 18. According to recent research, over half (58 percent) of Americans prefer passwords over biometric authentication methods such as eye scans or facial recognition when it comes to keeping their personal data safe. And given the propensity of many digital denizens to use “password” or “1234” as their protective string of choice, this mistrust is probably something of a problem.

42 percent of survey respondents do not want companies to save and use their personal biometric data, the study finds, and fewer than 1 in 10 participants were confident enough to consider it risk-free. And while some degree of skepticism seems healthy, this seems like a much more pronounced mistrust.

Related Videos

Even as certain biometric methods like fingerprint sensors become increasingly commonplace (with a number of smartphones allowing users to access their contents using a scan of their thumb or forefinger), they’re still far less commonplace than passwords. In fact, just 10 percent of Americans use fingerprint sensors, and as for eye scans, facial, and voice recognition, just 2 percent of survey respondents said that they used each method.

As for why Americans are so suspicious of biometry, the survey shows that 42 percent worry about not being able to access their online accounts in case of a malfunction. Nearly a third of respondents also cited biometric vulnerability as a concern, saying that criminals might be able to access or bypass biometric methods.

“The survey shows that biometric login methods are far from becoming a mass market. Nevertheless, for more security throughout the internet it is very important that alternative authentication methods like biometry are being further researched,” said mail.com CEO Jan Oetjen. “In order to meet the concerns of users, providers have to fulfill high data protection requirements concerning the storage and use of biometrical data.”

Editors' Recommendations

Canva’s new AI tools might replace your video editor
Canva's Magic Edit feature adding flowers to an image.

Canva -- the online design platform used to create logos, presentations, infographics, and more -- announced a new suite of AI tools that can do everything from generate new images to automatically edit videos for you.

The toolset touches nearly every part of Canva's design suite. It starts with Magic Design, which will automatically design a graphic for you based on an uploaded image and selected style. Users are free to edit the design after the fact, and they can automatically translate it with Canva's new AI-powered translate feature that supports more than 100 languages.

Read more
How to use Bing Image Creator to generate AI images for free
Bing Image Creator generated a realistic, yet artistic image of a hand drawing a hand.

Bing search made a giant leap forward in popularity and gained new conversational abilities when Microsoft added OpenAI's GPT-4 technology with the new ChatGPT-based Bing Chat tab. Now. another mode of operation is available with Bing Image Creator, which turns your written description into a picture.

According to Microsoft's blog post, Bing Image Creator uses a more advanced version of OpenAI's Dall-E. That means it can produce high-quality, photorealistic digital pictures, drawings, and paintings for you based on the text prompts you supply.
How to get access to Bing Image Creator
There are two ways to use Bing Image Creator. The simplest is to go to bing.com/create, which brings up Image Creator in preview right in your browser. This is available to everyone, and is a good place to try it out, even on mobile.

Read more
ChatGPT vs. Bing Chat: which is the best AI chatbot?
Bing Chat shown on a laptop.

Bing Chat and ChatGPT are two of the latest natural language chatbots to become widely available, and both are competing for your attention and text prompts. Both AIs are based on similar language models, but there are some distinct differences between them, making the ChatGPT versus Bing Chat debate one well worth having.

If you want to play around with these two exciting tools, here's everything you need to know to pick the right one for you.

Read more