Biometrics for all: Samsung looking to expand fingerprint scanning

Samsung is planning to integrate fingerprint scanners into all of its smartphones and tablets and not just save the technology for flagship phone customers.

Samsung is planning to integrate fingerprint scanners into all of its smartphones and tablets and not just save the technology for flagship phone customers.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, the company's senior vice president, Rhee In-jong, confirmed that Samsung wants to add the extra layer of security to all of its mobile devices and that soon fingerprint scanning would be joined by iris scanning too.

'We're looking at various types of biometric [mechanisms] and one of the things that everybody is looking at is iris detection,' he said.

In the build up to the launch of the company's current premium handset, the Galaxy S5, reports circulated that Samsung was going to integrate an iris scanner into the phone's camera. However, when it launched earlier this year, it did boast biometric security, although like with Apple's latest phone, the iPhone 5S, it was via a fingerprint scanner.

Unlike Apple, which is currently keeping its scanning technology as a feature simply for unlocking an iPhone and for validating purchases and log-ins on Apple websites and web services, Samsung is actively promoting the technology to third parties. Galaxy S5 owners can already use a fingerprint to validate PayPal transitions and the company hopes that other companies will soon integrate the feature into their apps too.

And as the popularity of the feature grows, so will the range of phones that support it. Samsung hopes to bring fingerprint scanners to entry-level and high-end handsets alike. However, when it comes to iris scans, expect them to start appearing sooner rather than later as premium handset features.