Majority of Brits are Ready to Ditch the Password: Survey

A majority of Brits are in favor of replacing passwords with biometric authentication, suggests new survey data from Equifax.

Conducted by OnePoll in October, the Equifax-commissioned survey polled a representative sample of 2,000 adults in Great Britain on their attitudes toward biometrics. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they would be happy to stop using passwords altogether in favor of biometrics, with the speed of biometric authentication being the top reason. Respondents also cited the greater feeling of security enabled by biometrics, and the feeling of stronger confidence it gives them in their financial institutions.

“Biometric technology continues to progress and be considered a more mainstream form of verification,” commented Equifax Head of ID & Fraud Keith McGill in a statement announcing the survey results. “It provides a more secure identification model for both companies and end users and can help financial institutions grow trust and confidence with their customers so it is very positive to see this recognised.”

For its part, Equifax presumably has a strong interest in the kind of enhanced security offered by biometrics in the wake of its disastrous 2017 data breach. The hack attack saw over 145 million Americans impacted, helping to draw attention to threats present in the modern digital security landscape.

But the OnePoll survey also pointed to other business incentives for the adoption of biometric authentication besides security concerns. Half of all respondents indicated that they had abandoned an online registration process for a financial product due to frustration, with over half of those individuals saying that the process took too long, and 46 percent saying it was overly complicated. These are areas in which biometric authentication and onboarding systems offer ready solutions – and indeed are increasingly being deployed in the financial services sector.