News Flash: Authentication Exerts Greater Influence on Consumers

New U.S. research find growing awareness of authentication and data protection issues

Seven in ten adults in the U.S. say their choice of financial institution is now influenced by its identity verification methods, up from 56% last year, according to the second Annual Consumer Digital Identity Study. Conducted by digital identity provider IDology, the study is based on 1,499 responses to an online survey between January 29 and February 11.

An article by Dark Reading says that 37% of the respondents in the survey had abandoned signing up for a new online account (via computer or mobile phone) because the process was too difficult or took too long. That figure was even higher (51%) among “Gen Z respondents” between the ages of 18 and 24.  Asked about automated tools to help them sign into an online account, 42% of the respondents said they are happy to auto-fill the information with a password manager, while 24% would be fine with a third-party retrieving information from their mobile operator and 23% are okay with identity information being taken from their social media profiles.

The IDology research also found that more than three-quarters of consumers in the U.S. strongly agree that companies need to protect their information, a increase of 16 percentage points over last year. Separately, Microsoft, one of the most vocal advocates of giving individuals greater control over their digital identity, announced an early preview of a new digital identity network, which runs on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. Based on an emerging set of open standards that Microsoft is developing with partners in the Decentralised Identity Foundation, this approach can handle tens-of-thousands of operations per second, Microsoft said in a blog post.

For more information, please see the Dark Reading article and the Microsoft blog post