Half of Brits willing to give blood to prove identity

Despite the furore that has dogged the UK's ID card rollout, Brits appear to be in favour of using biometrics technology and even their blood in order to protect their personal information and identity.

Three-quarters of UK adults would be prepared to use fingerprint scans to verify their identity with banks and government agencies, according to research by tech services company, Unisys.

silicon.com's A to Z of Biometrics

Click on the links below to find out everything you'll need to know about biometric security.

A is for Accuracy
B is for Behavioural biometric
C is for Cash machine
D is for Database
E is for Ear
F is for Facial recognition
G is for Gummi bears
H is for Hand geometry
I is for Iris
J is for Juan Vucetich
K is for Keystroke dynamics
L is for Liveness testing
M is for Mobile phones
N is for Network security
O is for Oxford
P is for Palm
Q is for Queues
R is for Registration
S is for Signature verification
T is for Twins
U is for Universality
V is for Voice verification
W is for Walk
X is for X-ray
Y is for Young
Z is for Zurich Airport

The figure is much higher than elsewhere in Europe - just 59 per cent of French respondents and 62 per cent of those from Germany said they would want to use fingerprint scanning tech.

In addition, 56 per cent of UK adults said they would be willing to use scans of blood vessels for the same purpose, compared to just 26 per cent of Germans.

But Jim Norton, senior policy advisor at the Institute of Directors, said the high UK figure is possibly more representative of the "worry factor" around personal data than real understanding of how biometric technology could be used - reflected by the research's discovery that 57 per cent of respondents are very or extremely concerned about ID theft.

Norton added the UK hasn't yet got to the point where there is an informed debate about how biometrics technology is used.

"I think the technology is good but I think there's relatively poor understanding if you ask the person in the street what these technologies mean and more importantly how they would actually be used in a practical system," he told silicon.com.

Norton added that the future of biometrics technology is highly dependent on the progress of the controversial government ID card scheme.

"You're never going to have [biometrics] as a complete panacea. There is always going to have to be other ways of showing identity," he said.

Home Office minister Meg Hillier said in a statement: "Using biometric identity cards will improve the way we verify our identity and this research suggests the public recognise how important secure and reliable checks are."