Photo from Bioscrypt/L-1 Identity Solutions

Biometrics used for security applications will see strong market growth, going from being a $3 billion business in 2008 to $7.3 billion by 2013, according to ABI Research. Fingerprint readers, like the one on this PIV Station card reader from Bioscrypt/L-

Researchers out of London today announced that security spending on biometrics technology will rise from around $3 billion in 2008 to $7.3 billion by 2013.

The research, from ABI Research, is part of the company's new research data offering on "Emerging Technologies."

Jonathon Collins, head analyst for the project, said the growth over the next five years will parallel "the effort to create standards for biometrics technologies." Researchers said that the growth was initiated by concerns over terrorism, but has also been adopted for reasons of "convenience", such as for laptop sign-on using fingerprints, or to speed up pass-through at airport security checkpoints.

The researchers said that they expect fingerprint biometrics to remain the dominant technology in biometric applications for security, but that face, iris, hand and speech recognition are also seeing growing adoption.

"It will be increasingly essential for organizations and companies, as they secure their facilities, equipment, and data, to understand the potential of each of these technologies as well as the potential to combine them to drive system efficiency and reliability," wrote ABI in announcing results of the research on emerging biometric technologies.