Towards an Understanding of User Acceptance to Use Biometrics Authentication Systems in E-commerce: Using an Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model

Introduction

Due to the rapid development of e-commerce during the last decade, e-commerce activities such as online banking have become widely accepted in industrialised countries such as UK and partially accepted in less industrialised countries such as Saudi Arabia. The following table shows a comparison of the levels of online banking use in the two countries (Alsajjan, 2008) (Table 1).

Securing online banking log in access is becoming increasingly important. Identity theft, hacking, and viruses are growing threats to online banking users. As more people use the internet, more identity theft cases are being reported. This could harm not only the users but also the reputation of the organisations whose names were used in these illegal acts. Over 8.4 million Americans had their personal information compromised during 2007⁴. For the same year, the loss caused by referred complaints was $239.09 million. In 2007, the latest UK statistics have estimated losses due to online banking fraud at £22.6 m⁵.