Pay By Touch Goes Online

Max Fomitchev writes to tell us that Pay By Touch, the biometric identification service, has announced an online version of their service. While currently the only implementation of this service is in the brick-and-mortar storefront of Star Markets grocery stores, the company hopes that online vendors will start signing up soon.

Comments

dinger?

[adam]

FTFA: "allows making online purchases with a slide of a dinger across the scanner" (emphasis mine)

really.. a dinger..? you don't say...

The whole fingerprint-for-payment-at-the-store thing has been debated here plenty before, so i'll steer clear of it.. but TFA (well, TFblogpost) is centered around Pay By Touch launching a service that lets you scan your fingerprint at home and autopay at various online websites with a simple swipe of your finger. I don't know who steered them down this path, but they should be fired.. promptly.

I can recall several dotbombs that had this same business model (an e-wallet that had all your info in it already so all you needed to do was purchase from participating vendors and a username/password/whatever was all you'd need to make each purchase), and they all failed miserably. Anyone remember flooz? Maybe i'm just a cynic and these guys will have a fresh new approach that will catch on like wildfire.. but it seems a nonstarter to me, since none of the failed dotcoms so much as required you to have a biometric scanner in your home.

Privacy Concerns ?

[Davemania]

Inevitably, this issue will come up. Traditionally, if your credit card or bank card is compromised, you can simply cancel it and acquire a new one but what about biomatric data used for identification ?

Repudiation?

[Indy Media Watch]

If there is a fraudulent transaction, and someone can argue (albeit wrongly) "the only way the transaction could have happened is with your fingerprint" - won't this make it harder to dispute a charge?