Credit card security
Nobody should ever have to take out a credit card consolidation loan to pay off mounting balances that they didn’t spend in the first place. However, if you aren’t careful with the security of your credit card, and don’t know about the protections in place to prevent credit card scams, your financial situation could be at risk.
Let’s face it, we all want quick, secure transactions at the supermarket checkout.
Within the next five years, we might find ourselves staring intently into the card machine while it verifies our facial features.
Credit Card fraud in stores is a big problem – losses of £49.2m were recorded last year, according to the UK Cards Association, so new ways to beat the fraudsters and leveling up credit card security are being researched all the time.
Worldpay is trialling the facial recognition idea. There would be no need for card users to go through the hassle of signing up or registering their details – the process would be automatic. A tiny camera embedded in the card reader takes a picture of the customer’s face the first time they use it and then references that image to verify their identity on subsequent occasions.
Credit Card Security Technology
Customers uneasy at the thought of their photo being kept needn’t worry – the images would not generate an actual picture but a mapping of the facial features: a unique biometric template, which would be stored in a secure, central database.
To take into account the changes that happen to people’s faces over time, the PED cam (PIN entry device camera) would capture a fresh image every time the card is used. Quite how to deal with more marked changes, such as beards, has not yet been resolved.
This technology has a distinct advantage over finger-printing in that, when hackers steal the details, it is more difficult for the fraudsters to use the facial recognition information to fool people.
It could certainly be a lot less nerve-wracking than having to remember those all-important four digits and realising that your mind has gone completely blank just when you’ve overloaded your shopping trolley and the huge queue behind you is getting restless.
