Exploring perceptions toward biometric technology in service encounters: a comparison of current users and potential adopters

Biometrics is a new technology that authenticates an individual's identity via his or her unique physical or behavioural characteristics, such as the iris, fingerprints, hand geometry, voice and signature. Although its application is becoming pervasive in the public and private sectors due to the potential benefits of the technology, its adoption by end-users is progressing slowly. This study investigates multiple aspects of the benefits and risks that consumers perceive in using biometric technology. A survey was conducted by contacting the actual customers of an American bank that has utilised fingerprint technology at its ATMs. The proposed model was tested with current users as well as potential adopters of the target technology. We found that enjoyment was the most salient perceived benefit for using fingerprint ATMs for both current users and potential adopters. Banks thus may highlight intrinsic values, such as the novelty of biometrics, to motivate the use of the technology. However, to promote potential users' adoption decisions, banks need to educate them about the security benefits of financial transactions under the technology. The result also showed that the current users were highly concerned about information privacy risk in using the fingerprint ATMs. Therefore, banks are advised to develop internal policies to protect personal biometric data from any identity theft or illegal uses to encourage continuous usage by the current users.