In this incessant game of cops and robbers, everyone is competing either to protect or to steal other people’s goods, data or money.  In the crazy arms race, biometric payment takes a prominent place in protection systems. After finger prints and iris scans, now we are interested in your vein pattern. Security: it’s getting under your skin!

Why keep tapping in a password or code to be identified or to pay? When you can now authenticate with a simple gesture using your fingertip, face or iris…and even your vein pattern.

What is biometric payment?

Here’s a reminder of the forces at work. With cashless payments and e-commerce, the question of security and authentication has become a priority for retailers and consumers alike. That’s why the 4-figure PIN, known only to the card holder, was introduced. Then 3D Secure was added. That’s the text message sent directly to your mobile phone containing a unique code, valid for a limited time, to confirm payment. In parallel, technological advances on our smartphones have enabled security to be tightened. We are talking here about fingerprint, facial and iris recognition. These have made it possible to secure and simplify payments. But they didn’t take into account the ingenuity of fraudsters.

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Which is the best biometric payment system?

A bank card even if it has been significantly developed, a PIN and a mobile can all be stolen or extorted. Fingerprints can be recovered and faces even stolen! Last March we learned that CLEARVIEW AI, an American company, had its database hacked. What was the damage? 3 billion faces unveiled! The company stocked and managed biometric information for hundreds of companies, government agencies, banks and non-profit groups…a considerable loss that reminds us to what extent we are reliant on technology.


What if we paid with our vein pattern?

That is the idea from Japan’s HITACHI. For several months, this high-tech giant has been offering local banks a completely new biometric authentication system based on the veins in our hands. The technology offers 3 significant advantages:

  • Our veins are unique and are not as easily accessible as our fingerprints might be.
  • They don’t change with age, unlike the face.
  • And above all: the reader and authentication of the vein pattern does not require any expensive sensors. A basic webcam is enough!

So, after fingers, eyes and faces, it’s time to make way for the veins…at least until the hackers find a weakness!

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Crédit photo ; iStock, id3 Technologies, Hitachi