"Pretty Close to a Must-Have": Balancing Usability Desire and Security Concern in Biometric Adoption

Abstract

We report on a qualitative inquiry among security-expert and non-expert mobile device users about the adoption of biometric authentication using semi-structured interviews(n=38, 19/19 expert/non-expert). Security experts more readily adopted biometrics than non-experts but also harbored greater distrust towards its use for sensitive transactions,feared biometric signature compromise, and in some cases distrusted newer facial recognition methods. Both groups harbored misconceptions, such as misunderstanding of the functional role of biometrics in authentication, and were about equally likely to have stopped using biometrics due to usability. Implications include the need for tailored training for security-informed advocates, better design for device sharing and co-registration, and consideration for usability needs in work environments. Refinement of these features would remove perceived obstacles to ubiquitous computing among the growing population of mobile technology users sensitized to security risk.