Stewart Hefferman, CEO of OmniPerception, urged the banking and biometrics industries to work together to develop new security safeguards to protect customer financial details.
According to Hefferman, last year HSBC made banking history by becoming the first bank in the world to adopt facial recognition biometrics technology to enhance security at its data centres.
Since then, he said, it has installed facial biometrics access control units in a number of its data centres throughout the UK to protect sensitive information that might otherwise be vulnerable to loss or misuse.
Recent high profile cases of sensitive data being lost by financial and also public sector organisations, he explained, has highlighted the risk to individuals and to the reputation of the organisations concerned.
Recognising this problem, the OmniPerception CEO said that HSBC is now working once again with his company to develop a more secure access control system for its new data centres using facial biometrics.
"HSBC has been quick to realise that facial biometrics is an effective way of protecting the bank's most valuable asset - data", he explained.
Hefferman said OmniPerception is now in talks with other banking organisations to exploit the facial biometrics technology more widely throughout the industry, as they believe the potential for using facial biometrics in this context has yet to be fully realised,
Interestingly, Hefferman noted that cost implications are likely to be a reason for the slow uptake of facial biometrics, particularly in the current climate which is testing the resolve of the entire industry.
As a result, he believes that facial biometrics is seen as luxury more than a necessity and is preventing a more widespread roll-out.
"More widespread uptake would have a positive implication on the cost which would be substantially reduced if the technology was adopted by the banks. Closer working relationships between the biometric and banking industry is also vital to ensuring more widespread adoption of the technology."