NEC Biometrics: No Cards, No Keys, No Problem

NEC Biometrics: No Cards, No Keys, No Problem

This IDC Market Note looks at NEC’s analyst briefing held September 4–5, 2024, at the company’s Tokyo, Japan, headquarters to share the progress it made developing Bio-IDiom facial, retina, fingerprint, voice, and even ear acoustic, multimodal identity security authentication technology. IDC believes biometrics and digital payment programs will simplify our lives in the not too distant future. The chief benefit that will drive these adoptions is convenience. New IT or digital experiences (DX) can be scary — most of us will remember when no one dared buy anything over the internet in the 1990s. Education, experience, and continued development can eliminate these fears helping consumers and citizens lead more productive lives by not standing in unnecessary queues, running to ATMs, and carrying around documentation to prove who they are and what rights or tickets they’ve previously purchased.The part of that public acceptance effort will be establishing a “Digital Ethics Compass,” which NEC purports is based on four principles:Avoid manipulatingMake your technology understandableAvoid creating inequalityGive users controlIt’s pretty much about establishing trust because we’re talking about personally identifiable information (PII) and money — not something for which any of us want to lose control. Several of the facial recognition uses mentioned here say that such data will only be retained for a short period of time (hours, days, or weeks), but these data stores will be valuable targets for cybercriminals. IDC suggests that a necessary step in this journey is proving to participants that their identities will be safe when retained, and then deleted after use as promised.