$59.7B Biometric Data 2026: Adoption and Risk

The global biometrics market is projected to reach 59.7 billion dollars in 2026, up from 51.89 billion dollars in 2025, according to The Business Research Company's 2026 Biometrics Global Market Report. That growth is not evenly distributed: adoption in payments and government ID is accelerating fast, while courts and regulators are simultaneously tightening the rules on how biometric data can be collected, stored, and monetized. Below is what the market data, the enforcement record, and the consumer surveys actually show, with every figure traced to its source.

How big is the biometric data market in 2026?

The biometrics market is projected to grow from 51.89 billion dollars in 2025 to 59.7 billion dollars in 2026, a 15.0% annual growth rate, and to reach 103.08 billion dollars by 2030, according to The Business Research Company's 2026 report. A narrower "next-gen biometric authentication" segment, covering app-based and cloud identity-verification tools specifically, is tracked separately at 82.17 billion dollars in 2026 by the same publisher, growing at 22.7% a year. The gap between the two figures reflects scope, not disagreement: the broader number includes hardware like fingerprint scanners and access-control systems, while the narrower one isolates software-based identity verification.

Figure 1: Projected biometrics market growth through 2030. Source: The Business Research Company, 2026 Biometrics Global Market Report.

Payments are the fastest-growing single use case within that total. Juniper Research found that biometrics authenticated over 3 trillion dollars in payment transactions during 2025, an increase of more than 650% from 404 billion dollars in 2020, driven mostly by mobile wallets and in-app face or fingerprint confirmation replacing typed card details. Biometric-enabled point-of-sale card shipments are separately forecast by Juniper to climb to 173 million units globally in 2026, up from a much smaller base five years earlier. Anyone collecting this category of data through a checkout or account flow needs a privacy policy that names biometric identifiers as a distinct data category, since general "personal information" language does not satisfy the specific-disclosure rules most biometric statutes require.

How much biometric data has Clearview AI collected, and what has it cost the company?

Clearview AI's facial-recognition database contains more than 30 billion photos scraped from the public internet without the consent of the people pictured, according to the Dutch Data Protection Authority's fine decision, published in September 2024 and dated 16 May 2024. The Dutch regulator fined the company 30.5 million euros for building the database without a legal basis and offering facial-recognition search to law enforcement customers.

The Netherlands is not the only regulator to act. The UK Information Commissioner's Office issued Clearview a fine of 7,552,800 pounds for the same underlying conduct; a lower tribunal initially sided with Clearview on jurisdictional grounds in 2023, but the Upper Tribunal reinstated the fine in 2025, ruling that Clearview's processing of UK residents' biometric data falls within UK GDPR's scope even though the company has no UK office. French, Italian, and Austrian regulators have reached similar findings that Clearview had no lawful basis to process EU residents' facial data.

Figure 2: Confirmed facial-recognition fines against Clearview AI across four jurisdictions. Sources: Dutch DPA (2024), UK Upper Tribunal ruling (2025), Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (2022), Hellenic DPA (2022).

Clearview has not paid most of these fines or deleted the underlying European data, according to regulator statements, which illustrates a limit of biometric enforcement: a fine against a company with no EU or UK physical presence and no local assets is difficult to collect, even when liability is clearly established.

Are biometric privacy lawsuits increasing or decreasing?

Litigation trends depend heavily on which jurisdiction you look at, and Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act is the clearest test case because it is the only US state law with a private right of action, meaning individuals, not just regulators, can sue directly. Trial lawyers filed 150 new BIPA class actions in 2025, down sharply from 427 in 2024, according to Duane Morris' 2026 Class Action Review. That decline follows a legislative reform in August 2024 that limited damages to one violation per person per statute-violated, rather than one violation per scan, which had previously allowed damages to multiply into the hundreds of millions for a single company's fingerprint time-clock system.

Figure 3: BIPA filings dropped after Illinois' August 2024 damages-cap reform. Source: Duane Morris 2026 Class Action Review, as reported by Legal Newsline.

Total BIPA class-action settlement value also declined, from more than 206 million dollars in 2024 to 136.6 million dollars in 2025, a 34% drop, per the same report. That is a reform effect specific to Illinois' damages formula, not evidence that biometric-data risk has gone away generally: 2019 through 2024 was six consecutive years of more than 300 new BIPA filings a year, and other states, including Texas and Washington, have their own biometric statutes with active enforcement that this Illinois-specific count does not capture.

Figure 4: 2024 still accounts for the larger share of combined two-year BIPA settlement value, even after 2025's reform-driven drop. Source: Duane Morris 2026 Class Action Review.

How does government use of biometric data compare to consumer preference?

Government deployment of facial recognition is expanding fastest at airport security checkpoints in the United States. The TSA's Touchless ID program launched as a pilot at 15 airports in summer 2025 and is set to expand to 65 airports by spring 2026, a more than fourfold increase in under a year, with second-generation Credential Authentication Technology scanners already deployed at nearly 84 airports and a longer-term target of more than 400. Participation in Touchless ID itself is opt-in, and travelers can request manual ID verification instead at standard checkpoints.

Figure 5: TSA's facial-recognition airport rollout timeline. Source: TSA program announcements, reported by Aviation Week and Biometric Update, January 2026.

Consumer sentiment runs ahead of, not behind, this government expansion. iProov's 2026 survey of 16,000 people across Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, the UK, and the US found that 72% of respondents would rather use face biometrics than passwords for secure online processes, and 55% said they would be more likely to use government services online if a secure biometric login were offered. Pew Research's earlier but still-cited survey of US adults found narrower majority support for specific use cases: 53% favor retail stores using facial recognition to confirm account holders at checkout, while 57% oppose social media platforms automatically identifying people in photos, showing that comfort with biometric data collection depends heavily on who is collecting it and why, not on the technology itself.

Where does biometric data get used, and how comfortable are people with each use?

Support is highest for security and identity-verification contexts and lowest for advertising and social contexts, a pattern that holds across every major survey on the topic.

Use case	Support level	Source
Face verification instead of a password (general)	72% prefer biometrics	iProov, 2026
Retail checkout account confirmation	53% favor	Pew Research
Government service login via face scan	55% more likely to use service	iProov, 2026
Social media auto-tagging photos	57% oppose	Pew Research

The pattern is consistent enough to be a practical guide for any business collecting biometric data: framing the use case as identity verification or fraud prevention tracks with majority support, while framing it as marketing, tagging, or profiling tracks with majority opposition, regardless of the underlying technology being identical in both cases.

The Bottom Line

The biometrics market is growing at 15% a year toward a 59.7 billion dollar 2026 total, and consumer preference for face and fingerprint authentication over passwords is now the majority position in most surveyed countries. At the same time, the two biggest enforcement stories of the past two years, Clearview AI's 30 billion-photo scraped database and Illinois' BIPA litigation wave, both trace back to the same root cause: biometric identifiers were collected or retained without a disclosed, specific legal basis. Illinois' 2025 reform shows lawmakers can dial enforcement intensity up or down through statutory changes, but the underlying disclosure obligation has not gone away in any jurisdiction that regulates biometric data. A site or app collecting fingerprints, face scans, or voiceprints needs those categories named explicitly, not folded into generic "personal information" language, and a privacy policy generator that supports named biometric-data disclosures is the fastest way to close that specific gap.

Frequently Asked Questions

How big is the biometric data market in 2026? The global biometrics market is projected to reach 59.7 billion dollars in 2026, up from 51.89 billion dollars in 2025, a 15.0 percent annual growth rate, according to The Business Research Company's 2026 Biometrics Global Market Report.

How much biometric data has Clearview AI collected? More than 30 billion facial images, according to the Dutch Data Protection Authority's fine decision published in September 2024. The company has been fined 30.5 million euros in the Netherlands and 7,552,800 pounds in the United Kingdom for scraping this database without a legal basis.

Are biometric privacy lawsuits increasing or decreasing? Decreasing in Illinois specifically: trial lawyers filed 150 new BIPA class actions in 2025, down from 427 in 2024, according to Duane Morris' 2026 Class Action Review, following August 2024 reforms that capped per-violation damages.

What share of consumers prefer biometric authentication over passwords? 72 percent of consumers globally would rather use face biometrics than passwords for secure online processes, according to iProov's 2026 consumer survey of 16,000 people across eight countries.

Where the Numbers Come From

1. The Business Research Company. (2026). "Biometrics Global Market Report 2026." Market projected at 59.7 billion dollars in 2026, up from 51.89 billion dollars in 2025, reaching 103.08 billion dollars by 2030.
2. Juniper Research. (2025). Biometric payments research. Biometrics authenticated over 3 trillion dollars in payment transactions in 2025, up from 404 billion dollars in 2020; biometric card shipments forecast to reach 173 million units in 2026.
3. Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (Dutch DPA). (2024). "Decision fine Clearview AI." 30.5 million euro fine, decision dated 16 May 2024, published September 2024. Database described as containing more than 30 billion photos.
4. Stephenson Harwood, reporting on the UK Upper Tribunal ruling. (2025). "Information Commissioner v Clearview AI Inc." UK fine of 7,552,800 pounds reinstated on appeal.
5. Legal Newsline, reporting on Duane Morris' 2026 Class Action Review. (2026). 150 new BIPA class actions filed in 2025, down from 427 in 2024; settlement value 136.6 million dollars in 2025 versus over 206 million dollars in 2024.
6. iProov. (2026). Consumer biometrics survey of 16,000 people across Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, the UK, and the US. 72% prefer face biometrics over passwords; 55% more likely to use government services online with biometric login.
7. Aviation Week. (2026). "TSA Expanding Touchless Facial Recognition To 65 Airports." Pilot began at 15 airports summer 2025, expanding to 65 by spring 2026.
8. Pew Research Center. (2022). "Public views of police use of facial recognition technology." 53% favor retail checkout confirmation use; 57% oppose social media auto-tagging. Older survey, included as the most recent Pew data disclosing full methodology on this specific question set.

Note: All figures verified as of July 2026. The UK Clearview AI fine and the Illinois BIPA filing count are both subject to ongoing appeals and legislative activity respectively and may change before this post's next refresh. Market-size figures are forecast projections from the cited publisher, not audited historical revenue, and are refreshed at least twice a year alongside updated market reports.