As Identity and biometrics solution providers know, their applications are found in a variety of vertical markets.
A LARGE variety of vertical markets.
Seven of these markets include financial services, travel and hospitality, government services, education, health, criminal applications, and venues. (Among others.)
Which three vertical markets does the Prism Project examine?
To start this post, I’m going to cheat and “appropriate” the work already performed by the Prism Project.
This effort is managed by Maxine Most’s Acuity Market Intelligence and supported by a variety of partners (including industry partners).
The Prism Project has identified 3 (so far) critical vertical markets for identity and biometrics. While this doesn’t pretend to be a comprehensive list, it’s a good starting point to illustrate the breadth of markets that benefit from identity and biometrics.
- The Prism Project has already released its report for financial services, which businesses can download here.
- The Prism Project has started to develop its report for travel and hospitality. You can preview the report here.
- Finally, the Prism Project plans to release a report addressing government services later in the year. For the latest status of this report, visit the Prism Project home page.
As you can see, identity and biometrics apply in wildly diverging vertical markets. You can use identity verification to open a bank account, enter your hotel room, or pay your taxes.
But those aren’t the only markets that use identity and biometrics.
Let me school you on two other markets, education and health
Let’s look at two markets that the Prism Project hasn’t covered…yet.
Education
Another example of a market that uses identity and biometrics is the education market.
- Who is allowed on a physical campus? Students? Teachers? Staff? Parents and guardians?
- Who is NOT allowed on a physical campus? Expelled students? Fired faculty and staff?
- Who is taking that remotely-administered online test?
Bredemarket has written several posts about educational applications for identity and biometrics. You can read all my education writing on Bredemarket’s “Educational Identity” information page.
Health
Similarly Bredemarket has written several posts about healthcare applications for identity and biometrics, including some that dwell on the unique privacy legislation that covers healthcare. You can read all my health writing on Bredemarket’s “Health” information page. (It’s not called “Health Identity” because healthcare has both identity and technology aspects.)
Another source on finance
By the way, Bredemarket also has a page on “Financial Identity,” but the Prism Project’s content is more comprehensive.
But wait…there’s more!
So this is the point where Ed McMahon intones, “So Acuity Market Intelligence and Bredemarket have identified all five of the markets that benefit from the use of identity and biometrics!”
And you know how Johnny (Johnny Carson, or Johnny Bredehoft) would respond to that.
So let’s look at two more markets that benefit from the use of identity and biometrics-two markets that I know very well from the beginning and end of my time at Printrak/Motorola/MorphoTrak/IDEMIA.
Criminal applications
There are government services, and then there are government services.
I started my biometric journey over 29 years ago when I wrote proposals addressed to law enforcement agencies who wanted to find out who left their fingerprints on a crime scene, and whether the person being arrested was who they said they were.
I don’t know if Maxine Most is going to classify criminal applications as a subset of government services, but there are clear reasons that she may not want to do this.
- When you pay your taxes or apply for unemployment benefits, you WANT the biometric system to identify you correctly.
- When you steal a car or rob a bank, you do NOT want the biometric system to identify you correctly.
Big difference.
Stadiums, concert halls, and other venues
If someone asked me in late 2019 what my career five year plan was, I would have had a great story to tell.
As I was wrapping up over 24 years in identity and biometrics, I was about to help my then-employer IDEMIA enter a new market, the venue market. This market, which CLEAR was already exploring at the time, replaced the cumbersome ticketing process with the use of frictionless biometrics to enter sports stadiums, concert halls, trade shows, and related venues. Imagine using your face or IDEMIA’s contactless fingerprint solution MorphoWave to enter a venue, enter secure restricted areas, or even order food and beverages.
Imagine the convenience that benefit consumer and venue operator alike.
What could go wrong? I mean, the market was robust, and we certainly would NEVER face a situation in which all the stadiums and all the concert halls and all the trade shows would suddenly close down.
Since early 2020 when a worldwide pandemic DID shut down a lot of things, many identity/biometric firms have entered the venue market with a slew of solutions to benefit fans, teams, and venues alike.
And still more
There are many more vertical markets than these seven, ranging from agriculture to automobile access to computer physical/logical access to construction to customer service (mainly voice) to critical infrastructure to gaming (computer gaming) to gaming (gambling) to the gig economy to manufacturing to real estate to retail to telecommunications to transportation (planes, trains, buses, taxis, and cruise ships).
And all these markets have a biometric story to tell.
Can Bredemarket help you describe how your identity/biometric solution addresses one or more of these markets?
Bredemarket 