We’ve all been there. After hours of searching online, you find that perfect pair of shoes. You’ve made your decision and it’s time to head to checkout. Trouble is, you can’t remember your password. The site recognizes your email address, so you must have a password. You request a reminder, but it goes into spam and you can’t find it. You give up on the purchase.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Our latest consumer survey data shows that password frustration and abandoned transactions are global problems. In Spain and the US, over half of consumers have abandoned a purchase because of password frustration and Australia, the UK, Canada and Italy are not far behind.

Note that this graph only represents the people who completely abandon their purchase—there are likely countless others that get frustrated yet persevere.

The bottom line? Businesses are losing money because of passwords, owing to increased abandonment rates.

So, on World Password Day, let’s consider why passwords are no longer fit for purpose. Because this is just the tip of the iceberg…

The disadvantages of passwords

In our report, The End of the Password, we found that the average American abandons 16 online purchases every year! Why?

Passwords aren’t user friendly

To try and make passwords more secure, consumers are asked to make them more complex, by using numbers, uppercase letters, lowercase letters and special characters. This makes them hard to remember. And if people can’t remember them, they write them down or use the same password on multiple websites…which makes them less secure.

Passwords aren’t secure

Passwords can be shared, guessed or stolen, which means they aren’t secure. Over 50% of young people admit that they share their log-in details with friends, and 59% of respondents admitted to reusing the same passwords across multiple sites.

Balancing security and usability is difficult: a memorable password is insecure, but a secure password is hard to remember. So, what’s the alternative?

Passwords vs face verification

Face biometrics enable organizations to balance security with an effortless user experience. iProov’s face verification technology is extremely simple for the individual to use while offering the highest levels of security to protect governments, enterprises and individuals against fraud.

• Passwords can be stolen: in the US, 60% of consumers have had to change a password after a data breach. You cannot steal someone’s real face. You can try and use a copy of someone’s face using a photograph or mask or deepfake, but iProov’s Genuine Presence Assurance has been built to detect imposters and spoof attacks.
• Passwords can be shared: sharing passwords is very easy to do, whereas you can’t share someone’s real face.
• Passwords can be guessed: while passwords are at risk from brute force attacks and social engineering, simply guessing is often effective too—no wonder, when “123456” was the most popular password of 2020!
• Passwords are hard to remember: the common wisdom is to have a different, unique password for each account. But this quickly becomes a problem when you have multiple accounts and too many combinations to remember. Secure online face verification means one password—your face—that’ll you’ll never forget.
• Passwords cause frustration: password frustration leads to lost sales and exclusion from online services. iProov’s face verification is effortless, providing inclusivity, customer satisfaction and maximum completion rates.

Face verification from iProov

iProov provides two technologies to enable organizations to onboard and authenticate customers.

Genuine Presence Assurance ensures that a customer or citizen is the right person, a real person and that they are authenticating right now. It protects against sophisticated criminal attacks and allows our customers—such as the NHS, Rabobank and the US Department of Homeland Security—to onboard and authenticate users remotely.

Liveness Assurance provides organizations with the ability to authenticate customers in lower-risk scenarios, making it ideal for frequent online authentications when the threat of attack is low.

For more information on how iProov can provide your organization with secure online facial verification for remote authentication and onboarding, please email us at contact@iproov.com or fill in our demo form here.

Alternatively, if you’d like more stats and information on the limitations of passwords, download our report The End of the Password here.