For those of you who thought you could now pay for stuff by only taking a selfie, we’ve got bad news. Selfie Pay doesn’t make selfies a form of currency, it is actually a new authentication process being adopted by MasterCard and many financial institutions around the world.
With the increasing threat of identity theft, several financial institutions are forced to find creative ways to guard people from being scammed. Instead of asking for password, companies are now asking consumers to provide evidence that cannot be easily copied or changed; a photo of their face.
In an interview, Tom Shaw, the vice president of enterprise security financial services firm said that they believe the password is dying. They now allow consumers to log into their bank account via their app by taking a selfie. Consumers simply hold the phone in front of their face and have to blink once to gain access to their account.
Similarly, MasterCard is set to launch this authentication measure nicknamed the ‘Selfie Pay’ by the end of Summer 2016. The program allows consumers to purchase goods online as usual and when they move to checkout, they would confirm the purchase by taking a selfie with the provided MasterCard app.
But the growing use of facial recognition also pose threats. With social media networks, everyone has a piece of your face that they can easily use to take a selfie.
To protect against this, the users are told when to blink when holding the phone to take a photo. Similarly, Georgia’s Tax collection division is rolling out a similar feature that gives taxpayers an opportunity to create an account by taking a photo. Their selfie authentication protocol will prompt people to position their face in a unique way when taking the photo. The aim is to capture a face while the user is in motion. This will make taking picture of a face from a still photo impossible.
MasterCard has also confirmed that using the Selfie Pay is not mandatory. consumers have the option to have the app scan their fingerprint or even go back to the old school method of authentication; the password.