In an identification system for electronic commerce, an end terminal transmits a transaction request message containing biometrics data of a user to a communications network, At least one electronic commerce service provider unit is provided which receives the transaction request message via the network and transmits an authentication request message containing the biometrics data to the network. An authentication server having a database for storing registered biometrics data receives the authentication request message and determines whether the received biometrics data has corresponding biometrics data in the database and returns a reply to the ECSP unit via the network indicating that the transaction request message is authenticated if the received biometrics data coincides with one of the registered biometrics data of the database.