Will Chip-and-Fingerprint Replace Chip-and-PIN?

When the US finally made the move to EMV cards and chip-and-signature we did not go as far as Europe did with chip-and-PIN. With many believing chip-and-pin to be more secure there were a lot of questions to answer and few answers other than government leaders believing that Americans would not be able to adapt to the new system so they decided to go half way. That conversation may soon be moot as the next evolution of security is being introduced to the world in chip-and-fingerprint.

This is all part of a greater move into biometrics, both with credit cards and with our technology in general. It is already incorporated with our laptops, tablets and smartphones. It is possible to unlock a phone with just a picture of your face and payments can be made via that same device after scanning a fingerprint. But how could you incorporate this into a credit card?

That question has already been answered. Last year in South Africa MasterCard released a biometric card that in order to authenticate a transaction the user had to scan their fingerprint. A fingerprint scanner was built into the card and would be powered when it was inserted into the POS terminal. The user would have two fingerprints scanned and kept on file with their issuer. MasterCard wanted to have the technology introduced to the world by the end of 2017. It seems that they were two years off.

In the interim other variations have been released like a contactless version of this card in Cyprus. But now it seems like these cards are about to go mainstream, at least in Europe. Visa is testing one such card and MasterCard released a card in Europe by April. Given that the US is about 5 years behind when it comes to credit card technology so we probably won’t see this here in the US until 2024.

There are of course security and privacy implications. Biometric information will need to be collected on all users and how it is protected and accessible will need to be hashed out. Many people will also not want to hand over their own personal information to any body, be it a bank or the government.

There are of course major benefits. In person credit card fraud should be all but eliminated. It could also be possible to eventually incorporate this technology away from the credit card and into our own personal computers. This technology already exists with smartphones, tablets and on some laptops and could help to stamp out card-not-present fraud as well. That alone should make its incorporation go much smoother and easier than the chip-and-signature changeover. The best part of this is that no major hardware upgrade should be needed as current POS terminals work with this technology.

As the year goes on we will be keeping an eye on how this technology works and how it is adapted. Biometrics are the next great leap in not only credit card security but also in security in general. If done properly it has the potential to eliminate credit card fraud and make us all safer online. It also has the potential to be greatly abused, so we’ll see where this goes.