Demand for Biometrics to soar in Middle East

Much of the growth will be attributable to PC/Network Access and e-Commerce, although large-scale public sector deployments will continue to be an essential part of the industry.

The report also predicts that by 2004, total Emerging Sector revenue, that is PC/Network Access, e-Commerce and Telephony, Physical Access, and Surveillance is expected to surpass Mature Sector revenue, Criminal Identification and Citizen Identification.

Managing Director of Biometrex 2003 due to take place 5-6 May 2003, Fairmont Hotel, Dubai, Trevor Punt said, 'The report is excellent news for biometric vendors in the UAE and the Middle East. Exhibitors who are participating in Biometrex are predicting that revenues attributable to PC/Network Access are expected to grow at a rapid pace over the next 24 months driven by the increased awareness of employee authentication and security problems. In the 24-48 months, biometrics are set to become a more common consumer-facing solution, and new biometric revenue models based on transactional authentication are expected to emerge'.

'New services that address a rapidly increasing biometric infrastructure comprised of finger-scan readers, telephones, signature tablets, and video cameras are expected to be developed as leading biometric companies face increased merger and acquisition possibilities, as well as competition from much larger technology firms entering the biometric market' Punt added.

At present finger-scan continues to be the leading biometric technology in terms of market share, commanding nearly 50% of non-AFIS biometric revenue. Facial-scan, with 15.4% of the non-AFIS market, surpasses hand-scan, which had been second to finger-scan in terms of revenue generation. Finger-scan and biometric middleware will emerge as two critical technologies for the desktop, together comprising approximately 40% of the biometric market by 2005.