Market background

Passwords are not enough

Passwords and PINs have formed the basis of IT user authentication for decades. However, they can be stolen or guessed, and the tools available for password cracking are becoming faster and more sophisticated.

Identity theft is a significant and growing concern for businesses and individuals alike. Analyst firm Javelin Research determined that in 2008, identity thieves stole $48 billion from over 9.9 million Americans. Corporate data breaches also pose a huge financial risk; a study by the Ponemon Institute found that the average breach in 2008 cost over $6.6 million.

Concerns over privacy and a number of high-profile security breaches are driving demand for more reliable security solutions.

Meanwhile, regulatory policies in the financial and healthcare sectors now require stronger data security, without defining specific solutions but under threat of heavy penalties.

A better way

What traditional authentication solutions lack is a way to conclusively link an authentication event to a specific person - to make sure that the person authenticating really is who they say they are. The ideal technique cannot rely on something that can be stolen, guessed, shared, or cracked. The only way to meet these requirements involves identifying something unique to the person, a physical feature or behavior that only they have.  This technology is known as biometric authentication.

BioID’s biometric authentication technology offers a secure, natural, and easy to use way to reliably verify a person’s identity.  To prove their identity, the user simply looks at a camera (such as a built-in webcam) and says a pass phrase, such as their name. Sophisticated pattern recognition technology compares their face, iris, and/or voice to a previous sample to determine if they match.

Market opportunity

Technologies such as voice and face recognition have reached a point where they are mature and easily affordable, and awareness is high enough to fuel a dramatic growth of the biometric industry over the next years.

According to industry analysts at International Biometrics Group (IBG), the biometrics market is expected to grow steadily and rapidly over the next several years, up to $9.4B in 2014.

Target markets

These solutions are especially suited for a few key markets:

• Desktop Authentication: BioID's platform-independent Desktop Authentication solutions can be bundled with hardware to secure corporate desktops in the office and on the road.


• Web Authentication: with BioID's Web Authentication engine, websites and web-based applications can provide secure user access authentication from anywhere with any hardware.


• Mobile Authentication: using the phone’s built-in camera and microphone, BioID's Mobile Authentication can protect access to the internet, e-mail, and locally stored data, as well as preventing unauthorized phone calls.