Majority in U.S. Argue Against Biometric Tech

Nearly six in ten people polled in the United States cited some hesitation or concern with biometric authentication. The top concerns among those polled by Statista include worry about data and concern that the technology is too easy to fool. Biometric authentication includes fingerprints, face recognition, iris scanners, and any voice recognition.

Public sentiment souring to biometrics and increasingly becoming skeptical of the technology comes on the back of various state laws and rulings in favor of more regulation around this issue. This week San Francisco was the first major city to ban all facial surveillance, a technology that critics fear expands government surveillance and police bias. The ban comes after a decade of regulatory work at the state and local level across the country, stretching back to the first biometric law passed in Illinois in 2008.

Currently, Massachusetts, New York, and Michigan all have privacy bills in the work to regulate biometric technology, following Illinois’s lead at legislating on the state level in this realm.