One in two Brazilians now store contactless credentials on their smartphone

Survey graph showing one in two Brazilians now store contactless digital ID credentials on their smartphone
CONTACTLESS ID: There is strong adoption by Brazilians of digital voter identity and mobile driving licences

More than half of the Brazilian population are now storing and using a digital version of their voter ID card (54%) or driving licence (51%) on their smartphone, while just over four in ten have a digital vaccination card (43%) and one in four have uploaded the recently launched digital Carta de Identidade Nacional national ID card (25%), according to a survey.

The survey also shows that 46% of respondents have used biometric fingerprint recognition to access digital services from their smartphone and 43% have used their face compared with 5% for iris and 4% for voice recognition, with the use of facial recognition showing the greatest increase, up from 29% last year.

Survey participants identified fingerprint recognition as the easiest and most comfortable digital service authentication method on their smartphone (37%), followed by facial recognition (21%) and passwords (20%), with 29% also identifying fingerprint recognition as the most secure followed by facial recognition (23%) and iris recognition (15%).

“Despite the increased growth in the use of facial recognition, there will always be people who prefer other methods for digital service access, including the traditional password,” the researchers say.

“The most popular will be the ones that best balance ease of use, perception of security and cost.

“Depending on how critical the service is, more than one authentication method can be combined, which increases security, but also friction. This combination is actually encouraged in the face of recurrent personal data breaches.

“An important fight against fraud is the offer of biometric facial recognition services by private entities, which have a growing database, and also by the federal government.

“Also, the new national identity card, which will have a single standard through the country, will contribute to this fight.”

The Passwords and Biometrics in Brazil survey was conducted by Panorama Mobile Time and Opinion Box with 2,080 Brazilian smartphone and internet users in October.

Brazil began rolling out contactless mobile identity cards in November 2022.

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