Fingerprint Payment System Gets Financing

prostoalex writes to tell us Yahoo! News is reporting that Pay By Touch, an electronic payments startup that connects your fingerprint to your wallet, has received an additional $130 million in financing to move forward with their biometric payment system.

Comments

Oh, great.

[Pig Hogger]

Now, thieves will cut the fingers off people they mug.

Isn't technology wonderful???

As long as I can pay for gas with my middle finger

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

... actually i'd like to pay for everything with my middle finger...

Fucking sweet.

Unreliable

[Cave_Monster]

We use fingerprint technology at work. Without scanning our fingerprint (in addition to entering a personal code of digits) we cannot get through the door. On occasions this scanner fails to recognise your fingerprint and after a few tries, you either try a different door or get someone else to scan their fingerprint. I cringe at this to be used for payments for this reason, not to mention somebody using standover tactics and forcing you to pay for their purchase or even like the parent mentions, getting your finger cut off.

Re:Unreliable

[utnow]

I can think of at least one thing that would make the system a bit more secure.

When you sign up to use the system, they scan all 10 of your fingers. You assign one (one per hand?) of them as the proper finger(s), and the remaining fingers serve as ALERT fingers. So assuming (like in your scenario) someone is standing over you with a gun you can proceed with the payment (or whatever) as usual (aka, you don't get shot), and the athorities can be alerted that you're in a 'situation'. Just use the wrong finger. Since you set your own 'correct' finger, the guy/gal won't know you've done anything, and will at least think twice before putting a gun to your head and telling you to do it. They can't just cut them all off and try them all since the chance of scanning the wrong ones is too high (8 or 9 out of 10) unless they watch you do it before approaching you. I'm rambling... you get the picture. 3

Copy-proof?

[Anonymous Coward]

One wonders how secure this is after seeing how relatively simple it is to create a fingerprint mold from nothing more than a residual fingerprint.

The information in credit card magnetic strips can be copied, but the person copying the credit card must at least have physical access (even if only temporarily) to the card in order to make a copy. Using fingerprints, however, is like writing down your PIN on everything you've touched...

No way

[evil agent]

This can't possibly catch on, can it? I mean why would you entrust your confidentiality to something as insecure as a fingerprint? You leave it everywhere you go! Imagine that everytime you leave a room, you leave behind a piece of paper with your credit card number written on it.

MOD PARENT UP!

[Spy der Mann]

Seriously - have you guys thought how many FSCKING FINGERPRINTS are there in the streets? Any glass, seat, trash can, paper, door handle, glass, clothes, suitcases...

sheesh! With credit cards at least someone had to steal it first! But now it only takes some scotch tape to do the job. What are those morons thinking?

Re:Am I missing something?

[Kohath]

Once you're identified, the store writes an electronic check from your bank account. The credit card companies aren't involved and don't take their cut.

The system is much cheaper for stores than credit cards. 60 cents Visa gets is more than ~15 cents Pay by Touch + check costs

I see these every time I go to the grocery store. I always wonder: what's the benefit to me? What do I care if the store saves 45 cents?