With 2020 in sight, now is the perfect time to pause and reflect on the past three months and see how the world of biometrics has evolved since our last update.

With everything from high profile announcements to some news you may not have heard, Q3 2019 has been fascinating. Here’s our run-down of the big biometrics news stories.

Access all areas

Excitingly, the use of biometrics continues to diversify into a broad selection of sectors. A leading example is access.

Current use cases for biometric authentication have shown its value as a secure way for an individual to access almost anything. From mobile applications to payments, biometrics give users an easy way to authenticate themselves in various physical and digital access applications.

A recent report by Park Associates shows the desire for biometrics, and new technology more generally, is reinforced by a substantial increase in smart door locks DIY self-installations, from 39% to 59%, between 2016 and 2018.

At this rate, we expect to see biometric enabled doors for our apartments, houses, work environments and cars growing in the near future.

Fingerprints closes in on 400^th device

In the past quarter, Fingerprints has supplied a biometric authentication solution for its 393^th mobile device model. This achievement demonstrates the ongoing demand for convenient, intuitive biometric solutions within the mobile world. 

In addition, we were delighted to supply the FPC1511 – our fourth-generation capacitive fingerprint sensor – for the Samsung Galaxy A10S. This is just one example of the continued growth of capacitive sensors in smartphones and follows our previous work with Samsung to add authentication to its notebooks and door locks.

Law and order

As many of you will be aware, with September 14^th PSD2’s mandate for the implementation of SCA (or, to those unfamiliar, Strong Customer Authentication) now in effect, biometrics is set to play a big role in muscling up banking’s authentication. The European mandate and its implementation by banks has stirred a lot of discussion across the continent – especially in the UK.

It’s great to see the fruits of years of work filtering down to consumer end points. PSD2 aims to make consumers’ lives and services better, and SCA is just one example of the regulation in action. It’ll be interesting to see where else it takes the industry, and how else biometrics can add value.

Sticking with the UK…

…a recent survey by Studio Graphene showed that 32% of consumers are optimistic about the growing use of biometric technologies - including fingerprint and eye scanning. This growing trust is great news, as people are embracing the wide range of benefits enabled by biometrics and are adopting them in multiple new use cases and form factors.

T is for terrific

In July, we announced an exciting collaboration with Giesecke + Devrient Mobile Security (G+D), a leading global mobile security technology company, to support its work on contactless biometric payment cards.

The card features Fingerprints' T-Shape module - part of the 1300-series – and demonstrates the growing appetite for biometric payments cards.

Benefits of our T-Shape sensors have been spotted outside the payment card sector, too. In August, we announced an order for one hundred thousand sensors to be integrated in a product used for safe online access and secure offline data storage. It’s a very exciting time.

BBC explores “the biggest change to payment cards for a decade”

In Q3, the BBC (or the British Broadcasting Corporation) got its hands on major UK bank NatWest’s biometric payment card, currently being trialed. Journalist Dan Simmons spoke with our partners NatWest, RBS and Thales, to learn more about the details.

The segment went some way to dispel some common myths, explore the benefits and explain in simple terms how it all works.

To date, 2019 has been a great and eventful year. Entering the final three months of the year, and already seeing high-profile biometric announcements from major OEMs, we’re certain there will be just as much to report on in three months’ time.