Dapple vs. centralized biometric databases
Plenty of identity systems — airport fast lanes, stadium entry, enterprise verification platforms — work by enrolling your face or fingerprint into a central database and matching against it later. It works. It also creates the single most valuable honeypot imaginable. Dapple takes the opposite bet: never centralize the biometric at all.
| Dapple | Centralized biometric databases | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your biometric lives | Nowhere — used in the moment to derive keys, then gone | In a vendor’s template database, indefinitely |
| What a breach yields | Nothing — there is no biometric material to steal | Templates for every enrolled person — and you can’t rotate your face |
| Insider & subpoena exposure | No stored biometrics to access, sell, or compel | Stored templates are discoverable, sellable, and compellable |
| BIPA / GDPR posture | Dramatically simplified — no biometric data retained | Full biometric-data compliance burden, forever |
| User consent story | “We never keep it” — an easy yes | “Trust us with your face” — a harder conversation every year |
| Phishing-resistant authentication (FIDO2) | Yes — core product | Varies — many are verification services, not authenticators |
The honest summary
Centralized biometric systems can deliver real convenience, and at airport scale they demonstrably work. The trade is permanent: once your biometric template is in someone’s database, its security is their promise to keep — through every breach, acquisition, policy change, and subpoena. Dapple’s architecture makes that promise unnecessary. Your biometric derives your keys on demand and is never stored, so there is nothing to breach, nothing to sell, and nothing to trust anyone with.
Comparisons based on publicly available information as of July 2026 — corrections welcome. The right answer depends on your environment; that’s what a 20-minute demo is for.
Book a Demo