Biometric Authentication: Pros, Cons, and Its Role in Going Passwordless

Tired of wrestling with passwords? You’re not alone. Facial, fingerprint, and voice biometric authentication promise lightning-fast logins. 

 

But here’s the truth: not everyone’s ready to go passwordless. 

 

Perhaps, you, like so many others, want the option of falling back on passwords – especially after Microsoft’s recent security update led to disrupted biometric logins. 

 

Today, we pull back the curtain on biometric authentication and show you how they work – whether you’re ready to ditch passwords or just want to understand what’s coming next. 

What’s biometric authentication? 

Unlike passwords, which is “something you have,” biometrics is “something you are.” This can include your face, voice, fingerprint, or iris. When you sign in with biometrics, you’re authenticating as your true self. 

 

In 2025, consumers show varying levels of familiarity with the different types of biometric authentication. 

 

Fingerprint biometric authentication is the leading passwordless authentication solution, with over 75% of Americans having used it and 40% considering it the most secure. By 2028, the fingerprint biometrics market is expected to rise to USD $15.42 billion. 

 

Meanwhile, facial biometric authentication is fast growing in popularity: 

• For online transaction security, 72% of consumers prefer it over passwords. 
• In 2020, 671 million people used facial biometrics, and the number is expected to rise to 1.4 billion in 2025. 
• About 38% of people are already using facial biometric authentication for mobile banking. An additional 32% would use it if they could. 
• However, more than 50% of consumers have concerns about privacy. 

The use of fingerprint and facial biometrics on smartphones is widespread, with about 80% of users in North America, Asia Pacific, and Western Europe employing them. 

 

Of all the passwordless authentication solutions on the market, voice biometrics is expected to grow the most, rising from $10B to $27B in 2027 (+63%). 

 

Finally, although most people associate biometric authentication with physical traits, it can also include unique behavioral identifiers such as the way you walk, type, or sign your name (more on this below). 

The passwordless future is here: How AI and biometrics are joining forces to protect your data 

New tech rewriting the rules of biometric defense 

• AI-powered liveness detection: The bad guys have racked up many wins – but leading biometrics security providers are cutting into their gains.  With patented AI-driven liveness detection, it’s easier than ever to distinguish between real users and deepfakes. Here’s how it works: When you log in to an account with your face, your device (or smartphone) will flash a one-time sequence of colored patterns onto your face. Machine learning is used to analyze the reflections of these patterns off your skin, confirming your live presence during the authentication process. Because the color sequences are never repeated, it’s impossible for hackers to inject even the most sophisticated deepfakes into the verification process.  

• Deep learning cancellable biometrics: Deep learning models can transform your original biometric data into a “cancellable” template – a coded version that obscures your real data. So, if your data is compromised, you can simply “reset” your template to keep your raw biometric data safe. 

• Contactless biometrics: Increasingly combined with iris scanning, vein pattern recognition is bringing touchless biometric authentication to sectors like banking and healthcare. Forehead vein recognition, in particular, is gaining popularity due to the use of face masks post-COVID. In 2025, deep learning models are significantly improving recognition accuracy and reducing false acceptance rates (FAR) - making more precise distinctions between genuine and imposter patterns. This, combined with the subcutaneous nature of vein patterns, makes vein recognition highly resistant to spoofing/presentation attacks. Because the vein pattern is under your skin, it’s extremely difficult for a hacker to copy or fake. 

• Behavioral biometrics: Imagine using your keystrokes to access your accounts. Keystroke dynamics analyze how you type – rhythm, speed, pressure, and even mouse movement – creating a unique behavioral signature that’s impossible to duplicate.   

• Heartbeat biometrics: The accuracy of heartbeat scans is now considered on par with that of fingerprint or retina scans, due to the unique patterns in everyone’s cardiac signals. These patterns can be analyzed using factors associated with music analysis (including rhythm, timbre, pitch, tonality), resulting in verification accuracy rates exceeding 96% in controlled studies. Heartbeat biometrics offer significant advantages: Where other modalities may fail (fingerprint, face, or voice) due to injury, aging, or environmental conditions, every person generates a heartbeat at all times.  And while other biometric authentication methods occur just at login, heartbeat biometrics enable continuous verification, aligning with the Zero Trust principle of “never trust, always verify.”   

The march to a passwordless future and the hidden risks everyone else is ignoring 

A multi-headed hydra that’s the stuff of nightmares 

In 2025, biometrics faces an increasingly treacherous threat landscape. 

Traditional presentation attacks - which involve using photographs, masks, or AI-generated images to trick platforms into granting access - are being joined by more diverse, advanced attack vectors. According to the iProov 2025 Threat Intelligence report: 

• Face swap attacks surged 300% in 2024, leveraging AI to convert still images into realistic video sequences that can bypass liveness detection checks on blinking, smiling, and head turning actions. Face swap attacks are more difficult to detect than static presentation attacks. 

• Digital injection attacks saw an alarming 783% increase in 2024. In these attacks, hackers inject digitally altered fingerprints, facial images, streaming videos, or voice recordings into biometric identity verification systems. 

• Native virtual camera attacks exploded by 2665% in 2024. In these attacks, hackers use malicious camera apps to feed fake biometric data into identity verification systems. 

• Image-to-video conversion tools now enable low-skilled attackers to create synthetic biometric data in just two steps. This means attackers only need to obtain or create a synthetic face image – the image-to-conversion tool does the heavy lifting by animating the image or turning it into fluid motion. It’s worth noting that synthetic identity fraud is the fastest growing type of fraud in the world. This is where fraudsters combine fake info with personally identifiable data from vulnerable groups (children, the elderly, and homeless individuals) to create new, synthetic identities. In 2025, the Federal Reserve is encouraging the use of deep machine learning models for synthetic identity fraud detection. These models can analyze massive datasets in real-time and uncover subtle differences between real and fraudulent identities – but are your favorite brands using them? 

• Dark Web crime-as-a-service marketplaces are democratizing biometrics fraud by offering easy access to advanced tools, with nearly 24,000 users selling face swap, deepfake, and injection attack tech. 

The hidden costs of convenience: What no one’s telling you about supposedly “unbreakable” biometrics systems 

According to KPMG’s 2025 Regulatory Alert report, the growing use of biometrics poses multiple risks. This includes: 

• irreversible damage from identity theft 
• the erosion of civil liberties through pervasive surveillance 
• wrongful denial of access due to errors in biometrics systems 

Biometric data breaches are also rising. In 2023, Pan-American Life Insurance Group experienced a breach of its BioStar 2 biometric access platform. Hackers stole PII, PHI, and biometric data from more than 78 million individuals, and the attack affected more than 2,600 organizations worldwide. 

 

Meanwhile, Meta agreed to a record $1.4 billion settlement in 2024 for collecting and processing facial biometric data of Facebook users without proper consent. The rise and severity of such breaches have caused a crisis of confidence among consumers, with concerns about breaches and misuse of biometric data rising from 69% to above 86%. 

 

Despite the risks, no single overarching federal law currently exists to govern biometric privacy. 

 

Consumer protections rely heavily on a patchwork of state laws. Several states have enacted or are advancing biometric privacy laws. They include Illinois, Washington, California, Texas, Colorado, Virginia, Utah, and Connecticut. These laws regulate the collection, use, storage, destruction, and monetization of biometric data. 

 

Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) remains the most influential statute, which allows consumers to sue over the improper collection and handling of their biometric data.  

 

It’s worth noting, however, that prior to a 2024 amendment to the law (SB 2979), BIPA allowed plaintiffs to claim damages for every scan of their biometric data. This led to massive class-action settlements. With SB 2979, all scans using the same method count as one violation. 

 

This fragmented legal landscape means biometric data protection depends largely on where you live. Ultimately, the lack of a unified federal framework leaves gaps that may put your data at risk. 

Test drive passwordless security without spending a fortune – and putting your data at risk 

Are you curious about biometrics but aren’t ready to give up on passwords? 

With LastPass, you don’t have to choose.  

You can unlock your vault by using either your device’s built-in biometric authenticator (like Windows Hello or Touch ID), a biometric security key, or a master password.  

Ultimately, you get the convenience of biometrics and the comfort of knowing your passwords are safe – until you’re ready to go fully passwordless. 

Here’s how it works: 

• Set up LastPass and import all your passwords into your vault – they’ll be protected by AES-256 military-grade encryption. 

• For a biometric MFA option, you can either choose desktop biometrics (like Windows Hello or Touch ID) or a FIDO2 biometric security key like YubiKey. 

• If using a YubiKey, all you have to do is tap your key to get instant access to your vault. 

• If you prefer to bypass biometrics altogether, you can log in with your master password and an MFA option like the LastPass Authenticator, Google Authenticator, or Microsoft Authenticator. 

• With our Zero Knowledge encryption model, all your passwords are accessible only to YOU – neither LastPass nor hackers have access to them. And all URLs associated with your logins are encrypted, which means hackers can’t see which credentials are tied to the URLs in your vault. 

With an advanced password manager like LastPass, you can take control by keeping your passwords secure, organized, and instantly accessible. As G2’s Spring 2025 Global Leader in passwordless authentication and platinum Business Titan winner, we’re trusted by millions across the world.  

And we’re so confident you’ll love LastPass that we want you to enjoy a free trial – no credit card or commitment required. Try these incredible Premium features for 30 days and see how you like them - you get to keep LastPass free even after your trial ends.