It wasn’t that long ago that the only methods of payment were cash and checks. Technology has advanced rapidly – as it always does – and provided us with more streamlined methods of payment that continue to get faster and more efficient. Nowadays you can pay by simply touching your credit or debit cards to a touch-and-pay device. But what if the card was removed entirely for the equation?
A South Dakota college is currently doing a campus wide experiment that allows students to pay for items by simply swiping their finger. Scanners have been placed in two shops on campus that work by simply asking the student for his/her birthday and to swipe their finger. The item is then paid for and the receipt for the item is emailed to them.
What’s to stop someone from faking your fingerprint or using a severed finger? The scanner checks for live hemoglobin in addition to the fingerprint in order to authorize the transaction. As of right now, the system is unbeatable, but not many people have seriously tried to beat yet either. The college campus is only made up of about twenty-five hundred students.
However, there are some security and privacy concerns. Potential users, which in the trial’s case are only fifty student volunteers, have to register their fingerprints before they’re able to purchase anything.
This isn’t the only potential advancement in transactional technology either. There are also studies being done on using an implanted chip in your fingertip to pay for items. Which would you rather use, a surgically implanted chip or your fingerprint?
Source: Popsci
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