MasterCard testing facial recognition security app
Soon, we may have one more reason for taking selfies. MasterCard, the American credit and debit card company, is trying out a new way to verify payments – via selfies!
The card company is testing a Smartphone app that uses facial recognition to pay for online purchases. Users in the trial have to hold their phone up as though taking a selfie and blink to confirm their identity and authenticate the payment.
Five hundred people are taking part in the trial, which is targeted at youth. Said MasterCard’s security expert, Ajay Bhalla,
“The new generation, which is into selfies… I think they’ll find it cool.”
Customers will be able to use the selfie method or a fingerprint with which to authorize an online transaction. The company is also looking at voice and heartbeat recognition as an alternative.
However the problem with these new ways to pay is that they are not as easily revoked as a PIN (personal identification number), should a fraudster somehow manage to get hold of your details.
Said an independent security researcher Ken Munro,
“If an ordinary password gets compromised you can simply revoke it or change it. What happens if your facial recognition data gets stolen? You can’t change your face.”
For example, Google tried using facial recognition to unlock phones but people quickly realised you could just present a photo of that phone’s owner in front of the camera to bypass the security system.
Perhaps the best way, as Munro suggests, is to combine both methods of security,
“Ideally I’d like to see facial recognition used in conjunction with a PIN. Both systems have flaws, but work brilliantly when you combine them.”
This takes shopping to a whole new ‘self’!
To read more about selfies, click here and here.
(All images - credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)
