In a May teleconference hosted by the International Biometric Group (IBG), a consulting firm that seeks to set industry standards for biometrics, conference leaders warned that the growing use of biometrics to do everything from identifying employees to facilitating national I.D. programs has a strong potential to threaten personal privacy. In response, IBG is seeking to set best practices for the use of biometrics, including issuing ratings for the differing privacy risks of various technologies.

According to IBG director Melanie Gordon, "various biometric technologies used in deployments bear very different relationships to privacy issues, and that's misunderstood." Specifically, IBG rates finger scanning and facial scanning as high privacy risks, partly because finger-scanned images are increasingly stored in public-sector applications, where they may not be secure, and facial scanning can easily be done without the consent or knowledge of the person being scanned.

Meanwhile, new research from the Cutter Consortium shows that 6 percent of U.S. companies have deployed biometrics in some fashion. "Just three short years ago, it was difficult to get funding for early-stage biometric companies," says Cutter Consortium senior consultant Steve Andriole. "Demand is now growing dramatically, and the ever-so-important price/performance ratios are beginning to ease in favor of performance, giving biometrics a chance to develop."

Andriole also notes that fingerprint recognition is emerging as the most cost-effective biometric technology. "Within a few short months, we will routinely begin to see fingerprint scanners built into keyboards as authentication options, as well as other entry devices," he says.