Who wants Continuous Authentication on Mobile Devices?

Continuous Authentication(CA) is the process of using biometrics to transparently authenticate the user. Since a CA system continuously checks for the presence of the logged in user it is more secure and facilitates schemes with multiple levels of security. CA is suitable for mobile platforms due to the ease of use, transparency and security it provides. We evaluate the usability of CA in a widespread manner by conducting a survey with roughly 500 respondents. This is the first paper to relate perceptions toward CA to the users security awareness. The perceptions of security towards biometrics based methods have improved over the last 20 years, compared to secret based methods. We show that now, biometrics are perceived to be more secure than other methods. We found that users see a requirement for multiple levels of security. Furthermore users are willing to adopt CA for mobile devices. We analyze factors like security awareness, gender and mobile device operating system, to draw statistically significant conclusions regarding their effect on users willingness to adopt CA and their perceptions about CA. The findings and major concerns highlighted in this paper should be considered when designing a CA system for mobile devices.