Improving Two-Factor Authentication Usability with Sensor-Assisted Facial Recognition

Two-factor authentication is often considered by users as annoying, hard to use and time consuming due to their complexity and implementation this often leads to users making usability-focused decisions at the expense of security. We believe the development of biometric recognition technology allows for an improvement in the way we implement twofactor authentication systems. In this paper we study the SensorAssisted Facial Recognition (SAFR) system and analyze its security and usability compared to current token-based twofactor authentication systems. We believe that the SAFR system can replace and improve the usability of two-factor authentication for use with low-security services while suggesting possible implementations for use in high-security applications. We also highlight key strengths and weaknesses of the SAFR system, and note the innovations SAFR brings to improving the usability of facial recognition while maintaining security. In this way we hope to break down what we believe is one of the key barriers that prevents users using two-factor authentication. We also suggest further avenues of research to improve the usability of facial recognition systems.