Remember that old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words?” Well, in 2016, a selfie may be worth more. MasterCard recently announced it is developing an app that would allow users to pay with a selfie-generated password. Meaning, you would take a selfie and only your selfie could access your account. In order for the payment to process, the selfie has to be verified as a “live” selfie, so users will have to blink, or wink, to approve payment.
Over the next few months, MasterCard plans to roll out its new app across the United States and United Kingdom. If you’re not a selfie kind of person-or at least not publicly-fear not, as the app also gives you the option to create a password with your fingerprint. Similar to Apple’s security authentication feature, you would scan your fingerprint to process a payment. According to MasterCard, users will have to download the app and, upon opening it, will be prompted to either take a selfie or scan their fingerprint for ID purposes. This is how you would then verify your information when making purchases using your MasterCard.
MasterCard’s selfie authentication brings security to a whole new level and could help protect against stolen identities, especially since the selfie has to be done in real-time to unlock payment. For phones that do not have fingerprint scanners, this type of technology could be useful as it offers an added layer of protection.
It has also been reported that MasterCard is studying heartbeat scans, iris scans and voice authentication with plans to develop additional ways to create personal passwords. It sounds like MasterCard is totally done with traditional passwords. We’ll be curious to see how effective and easy it is to pay with a selfie once MasterCard rolls the app out. At any rate, it gives people another excuse to snap a selfie.