Biometric payment systems: how does it work?

While inspired with success Pay By Touch is trumpeting all over the world that in a very close future all payment systems will turn to biometric identification of user we suggest to see is it really worth running to shops for buying notebooks with finger-print sensor or usb-gadgets with the similar function.

We won’t start discussions on appearance of technology, its developers, and will directly look at the existing market and its prospects.

So, today’s leader is Pay by Touch. Not long ago it has offered the world its revolutionary technology TrueMe.

"With the continued growth of identity theft, credit card fraud and phishing scams, security on the Internet is more important than ever," said John Rogers, founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pay By Touch.

"TrueMe brings the security and protection of our industry-leading biometric services to the Internet for the first time, providing a new layer of privacy and convenience to PC users everywhere."


As most of biometric systems work on one and the same way we will see operation principle of TrueMe technology that is similar to other biometric payment systems:

- Connect to Pay by touch system;

- Buy usb-gadget for reading of finger-print;

- Start paying for Goods or services through Internet;

- Scan finger-print;

- Then takes place finger-print coding with use of serial number of usb-gadget itself;

- Ready code is sent into Pay by touch system. At the same time server receives request from payment recipient;

- If code is decoded successfully and conformity of usb-gadget owner and of device itself is identified, information about payer is sent to contractor by communication channel;

- Payment takes place.

And though up to this moment more than three millions of Americans have registered in Pay By Touch system and left their biometric data in one of 2,400 centers in 44 states the question “Where does this market roll?” still remains. Surely it’s not profitable now to develop complex technologies of system cracking as market is not satiated with money and industry is very little invested. The whole mechanism is not debugged yet. The cases when device is stolen and owner is constrained to conduct transaction are also possible. Or another case when device works on license number but being used by unregistered owner. And how confidentiality problem is solved? Most of population would like to skip identification during transactions. But there is an opinion that USA authorities besides finger-print can oblige population to write down their SSN under pretence of additional identification of user. And as well as cards this payment method can also be affected by phishing technologies when people will fall for the bait of swindlers and enter their biometric data that will further be stolen by phishers.

There are lots of questions but very few answers for them yet. One thing is clear, payment system that can provide user with maximum security does not exist yet. And any attempts to secure user against swindlers turn either into paranoid obsession that makes use of payment system incredible, as E-bullion has, or into methods that erase the frames of customer confidentiality. It’s doubtless that biometric payment systems will have a great success after a time but they will turn Internet virtual economy into one more sphere, tightly controlled by government.