From bank accounts to emails, everyone is working on providing a secure and viable option to keep away hackers and theft. We’ve seen a number of different concepts to real working solutions such as a two-step process that includes a password and text message authorization code to even fingerprint scanners. Now MasterCard is prepping a new option for consumers to use with their purchases. This new solution is facial recognition through an application on your smartphone. Ajay Bhalla goes over exactly how this process would work when it’s ready for the general public consumers.
Ajay Bhalla is the man in charge for coming up with different innovate ideas for MasterCard’s security options. One of the solutions that Ajay came up with is allowing consumers to confirm purchases by just taking a selfie. MasterCard believes that by just taking selfies to confirm purchases would severely cut down fraud from those who steal your credit card numbers. This isn’t the first time MasterCard has tried to cut down fraud as they also started a feature called SecureCode. What this feature does allow is consumers to setup a password for online purchases in case your credit card happens to be stolen, those who steal your credit card information won’t be able to make a purchase online just by using your card.
How this facial recognition feature will work is that an image is first captured through a selfie photograph which is then transferred into a digital map. That map is then transmitted to servers owned by MasterCard as an algorithm to your account. When you go to make a purchase afterwards, the app will require a selfie in which you must blink once. By adding the requirement of blinking for the camera will assure thefts can’t use a photograph of you to fool the program. However, there is some concern by security consultants. One of the biggest and the main issue to the feature is that the image is being stored in one particular place, MasterCard’s servers. If these servers are hacked then the algorithm can be obtained.
In the very near future, MasterCard will start up a pilot program that will give the ability to use fingerprints along with facial recognition to confirm any purchases made on the credit card. This pilot program will first start off with just 500 customers but if everything goes according to plan, the features will then roll over to the general public possibly as early as within the next year.