The government obviously loves its biometrics, but a new study has found that the nearly fail-proof validation that biometrics offers, coupled with its outright convenience, is scoring some big points with consumers.

Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine that finger grease would become so darn popular. You see, besides thinning the suds of a frothy beer, finger grease is fast becoming the de facto method by which everyone will be validated for security purposes. The government obviously loves its biometrics, but a new study has found that consumers do too.

First, a bit about biometrics. Did you know biometrics comes from the ancient Greek word bio, which means “life,” and metron, which means “measure”? Neither did I. But you can read up on biometrics in this report from Ivanhoe Broadcast News and the American Institute of Physics. In a nutshell, biometrics is the science of using biological properties such as fingerprints, an iris scan or voice recognition to identify individuals. These unique signatures can be used to authenticate or determine identity. The nearly fail-proof validation that biometrics offers, coupled with its outright convenience, is scoring some big points with consumers.

According to a new study conducted by Unysis, a whopping 70 percent of consumers worldwide support the use of biometrics administered by a trusted organization (e.g., a bank, healthcare provider or government organization) as a way to verify an individual’s identity. The Unisys research further found that 66 percent of consumers worldwide also favored biometrics as the ideal method to combat fraud and identity theft as compared to other methods such as smart cards and tokens. This finding shows a slight increase from separate research that Unisys conducted in September 2005, which found 61 percent of consumers worldwide favored biometrics as the preferred method to fight fraud and identity theft.

“This research is revealing since many headlines today seem to question biometric adoption because of legitimate privacy concerns,” said Mark Cohn, vice president, homeland security solutions, Unisys Corporation. “System developers and owners must address those concerns so that these technologies can move toward the mainstream on a large scale with appropriate protection and sensitivity.”

Other key findings include:

• Convenience was the top reason for biometrics support with 82 percent citing the benefit of not having to remember separate passwords or other login data;

• Consumers from North America support biometrics for identity verification more than any other region; and

• Voice recognition is the most favored authentication method, cited by 32 percent of respondents, followed by fingerprints (27 percent).

So how, pray tell, does some of this fancy-schmancy biometrics stuff work anyway? Well, if you’re in San Francisco this week, you can see firsthand.

Biometric security solutions provider UPEK is currently demonstrating the industry’s first silicon fingerprint sensor designed to comply with Federal Identification Processing Standard (FIPS) 201 standards, enabling biometric authentication for a whole lot of different government programs — including Homeland Security — at this year’s CardTech SecureTech (CTST) industry show in San Fran May 2-4, 2006. The company will highlight its TouchChip sensor’s small size and low power consumption, while meeting the image size and image quality specified in FIPS 201 and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SP800-76.

What are your thoughts? Does biometrics have its finger on the pulse of current and future security needs?

Earlier: Biometrics Beyond Prime Time