Mastercard is adding a new feature to online payments in the form of facial recognition and fingerprint verification. It has been revealed that shoppers would be able to pay for their online purchases using pictures of themselves (selfies), and fingerprint scanners instead of passwords.
By the use of this biometrics, all cardholders will have to verify their identity whenever they are making online purchases, either with selfies or fingerprints.
The MasterCard identity app
For this purpose, a MasterCard Identity Check app has been created. The MasterCard’s Identity Check app also supports fingerprint biometrics, offering app users a choice of verifying a payment online with either their fingerprint or face at the time of purchase, the aim being to increase e-commerce by abandoning the need for online buyers to make the constant use of passwords.
The introduction of this technology will strengthen security when people are making payments that do not involve a one-on-one interaction and will be integrated smoothly for easy use in decreasing the tendencies of a card being used by any person who is not the owner.
The innovators of this app with the biometrics hope to make online payments easier for shoppers, meaning they are most unlikely to abandon their shopping carts because of a declined password.
The MasterCard Identity Check app will induce cardholders to:
Snap selfies and scan their fingerprints to ascertain their identities through biometrics;
After verification, they can return to the merchant site to finalize the online purchase.
One existing concern with using biometrics for verification is that they are unlike passwords because they can’t be changed. The MasterCard will properly encrypt all biometric data it is accessing. It will store the facial biometrics and fingerprints at the device level and will be converted and stored as encrypted code on the devices.
Facial biometrics is used only for the purpose for which it is collected, that is to verify the identity of a person and not for any other purpose. The result of the use of the data will be used to improve the app from time to time.
There is a board which has been created known as FIDO (Fast Identity Online), whose main goal is to store and match the biometrics on the device. MasterCard is investing in this technology and it will hopefully lead the payments industry in developing solutions whenever possible.
The use of biometric technology has become more common in many areas of business and MasterCard is simply helping consumers look for secure and convenient ways to make online purchases using their smartphones. This was the natural next step for innovators in the payment security space. Reducing the risk of fraud has always been a top priority for MasterCard, and the addition of this technology is going to make payment verification a lot easier and increase the strength of the security of the entire payment space.
The payments company is bringing out the service in only 12 European countries for now. This will be followed by trials in the Netherlands, US, and Canada. More countries will be expected to follow in 2017.
