More Than Two-Thirds of Americans Support Adding Biometrics to Government-Issued Identification

According to New TRUSTe Study, a Majority of Consumers Want Biometrics on

Credit and Debit Cards as Well

    SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Eighty-two percent of Americans
 support the use of biometric identification on passports, according to a
 recent survey conducted by TRUSTe, the leading online privacy certification
 and seal program, and market information group TNS. Three-quarters of
 Americans support the addition of biometric information to driver's
 licenses and nearly as many (72.6 percent) support adding it to Social
 Security cards. More than half (52 percent) of respondents agreed with the
 statement that "it will make it much harder for terrorists to operate
 within the U.S. with the use of biometrics to establish the identity of
 Americans." Conducted in September 2006, the survey indicates that
 Americans are willing to forego some personal privacy and anticipate misuse
 of the information in exchange for security.
     -- Fifty-three percent of respondents agreed with the statement that the
        use of biometrics "will greatly reduce personal privacy because the
        government will be able to track your movements."
     -- Sixty percent of respondents agreed that "there is a high potential for
        the government to misuse the information."
     But Americans also seem unsure as to how effective biometrics are in
 combating identity theft. More than two-thirds of Americans (68 percent)
 believe that adding biometric identifiers to ID documents will make it much
 more difficult for thieves to steal their identities but a nearly identical
 proportion (67 percent) think that "criminals will find a way around the
 technology."
     Seventy percent of respondents had heard of biometrics, the measurement
 of unique physical characteristics used to verify personal identity, prior
 to being surveyed.
     "The survey results seem to indicate that in dealing with government
 use of biometric data, most people will tolerate a decrease in personal
 privacy to gain increased security in the form of physical safety," said
 Fran Maier, executive director and president, TRUSTe. "This doesn't seem to
 translate to the retail sphere where consumers appear to be more cautious
 about giving away their personally identifiable information. At TRUSTe, we
 believe the retail sector can build trust in the use of biometrics by
 promoting privacy through informed choice about the way that consumers'
 information is going to be used."
     Retail Identification
     Three out of five Americans support adding biometric data to credit
 cards (64 percent) and debit cards (62 percent), but are much less likely
 to want that information on a retail store loyalty card (27 percent). This
 corresponds to other findings in the survey that 76 percent of respondents
 trusted banks and financial institutions "always" or "most of the time" as
 compared to 41 percent of respondents trusting retail stores "always" or
 "most of the time."
     The survey revealed that consumers don't trust systems that use
 biometric identification as a payment method. Less than two percent of
 respondents have used a fingerprint payment system and 32 percent say that
 they "do not trust retail stores with this information." Only 23 percent of
 respondents expressed a desire to use this kind of payment system.
     "We wanted to determine how Americans view the use of biometrics for a
 variety of identification purposes," said David Stark, North America
 privacy officer, TNS. "The results of our survey suggest that there are
 still a significant number of people who are apprehensive about the use of
 biometrics as a form of ID, and that this number is much greater for retail
 uses than for government identification."
     Methodology
     Commissioned by TRUSTe and conducted by market research group TNS, the
 survey polled 1,025 U.S. consumers between September 25 and September 29,
 2006. Email invitations were sent to a nationally representative sample of
 the U.S. adult online population derived from the TNS NFO Internet Access
 Panel, which comprises more than one million U.S. households that have
 agreed to participate in survey research from time to time. In total, 1,025
 online interviews were completed and the survey results are considered
 accurate to within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
     Interviews, Additional Resources Available:
 
     -- Fran Maier, executive director, TRUSTe
     -- David Stark, North America privacy officer, TNS
     -- TRUSTe/TNS Biometrics survey results
     -- www.truste.org
 
     About TRUSTe
     TRUSTe helps consumers and businesses identify trustworthy online
 organizations through its Web Privacy Seal, Email Privacy Seal and Trusted
 Download Programs. An independent, nonprofit organization celebrating its
 10th anniversary in 2007, TRUSTe certifies more than 2,000 Web sites,
 including the major internet portals and leading brands such as AOL,
 Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Intuit and eBay. TRUSTe resolves thousands of
 individual privacy disputes every year. To learn more about internet
 privacy visit www.truste.org.
     About TNS
     TNS is a market information group:
 
     -- The world's largest provider of custom research and analysis
     -- A leader in political and social polling
     -- A major supplier of consumer panel, media intelligence, Internet and TV
        and radio audience measurement services.
     TNS operates across a global network in over 70 countries, allowing the
 firm to provide internationally consistent, up-to-the-minute and high
 quality information and analysis.
     TNS is the sixth sense of business.
     www.tns-global.com
 
 

SOURCE TRUSTe