According to new research from Accenture, 77% of consumers would be interested in an alternative to usernames and passwords to protect their security on the Internet. This and other insights emerge from Accenture’s 2015 Digital Consumer Survey, which questioned 24,000 consumers across 24 countries, including several European.
Security is one of five mega-trends identified by the survey and a new report, Digital Trust in the IoT Era, takes a deep dive into this key aspect of our digital lifestyle. Concerns about digital trust are not limited to one type of country or part of the world. In both developed and emerging countries, consumer wariness about data privacy and digital trust is intensifying as the exploding Internet of Things (IoT) market generates unprecedented amounts of consumer data on more devices. 54% of digital consumers are cautious about the information they share due to lack of confidence in online security.
Specifically, the research reveals that 60% of consumers find usernames and passwords cumbersome. There is also an increasing frustration with these traditional security methods because they are becoming less reliable for protecting personal data such as email addresses, mobile phone numbers, purchasing history or personal health data.
Login to the future
Consumer openness to alternatives is high, with consumers in China and India most likely to be open to alternatives, at 92% and 84% respectively. More than three-quarters (78%) of consumers in Brazil, Mexico and Sweden, and 74% in the United States, are also willing to consider security methods other than usernames and passwords. Traditional one-step passwords are now being matched with alternative methods using biometric technologies such as fingerprint recognition and two-step device verification. Within the next few years we are likely to see many more consumers embracing these and other alternative methods, making the widespread practice of typing usernames and passwords to log on to the Internet obsolete.
Read more about the importance of digital trust in the IoT era
Discover the five mega-trends in the 2015 Digital Consumer Survey
