Biometric Payment Arrives in a Store Near You

"A chain of Florida convenience stores has begun accepting fingerprints as payment, using a biometric system called Pay By Touch. The company is a Bay-area startup backed by $130 million in VC cash and the acquisition of BioPay, a Virginia-based biometrics firm that's already done $7 billion in European transactions. From the article: 'The company is a bit puzzled by customer privacy fears. After all, they say, how can using a unique fingerprint for identification be riskier to theft than a plastic card, key chain token, or account number? ...The fingerprint image recorded is not the same as those collected by the federal government or law enforcement.'"

Comments

Don't they watch murder shows?

[NeuroManson]

"After all, they say, how can using a unique fingerprint for identification be riskier to theft than a plastic card, key chain token, or account number?"

Just look at murder victims whose hands have been lopped off to hide their identities. It doesn't take much of a (morbid) leap of logic that someone could hold onto a thumb, and surrepticiously use it to withdraw someone's entire finances.

I'm not *that* anonymous

[anaesthetica]

Scuttlemonkey wrote "An anonymous reader writes..." despite the fact that this is my journal entry, and says qo quite clearly at the top of the story: "Journal written by anaesthetica (596507) and posted by ScuttleMonkey on 14:12 Saturday 24 June 2006"

I mean, I may not stand out in a crowd, but this is just an unnecessary blow to my ego.