Until we get to a Minority Report-like future, we’re all carrying around some unique forms of identification that even the most talented identity thieves can’t steal: our bodies. In an effort to beef up security by taking advantage of customers’ unique phyiscal attributes, Wells Fargo will offer some clients the option of signing into their mobile app accounts with eye scan verification, or face and voice recognition.
Corporate clients will be able to sign in to the bank’s commercial banking app using one of the biometric options instead of their password or PIN starting this summer, reports the Los Angeles Times.
“User names and passwords are basically 15 years old. They’re at the end of their useful life,” said Secil Watson, who oversees online and mobile applications for Wells Fargo commercial banking. “Something needs to take their place.”
To use the eye scanning system, developed by a company called EyeVerify, corporate clients open the app and choose that verification option. The customer then lines up the phone’s camera to center their eyes in a frame on the screen, and they’re directed to look to the side to expose blood vessels on on side of the eye.
Those vessels create a unique pattern that can then be used to identify the person that eyeball belongs to.
If the customer chooses the face- and voice-recognition system, they’ll need to line up their face again in a box on the phone’s screen, then recite a series of numbers that appear on the screen.
The eye scan system works if you wear glasses or contacts, but won’t if you have a glass eye. It could also be stumped if you’re moving or there’s not enough light.
Worried about having a late night out and having those blood vessels standing out in sharp relief? Don’t be — the eye scan technology works even if your eyes are bloodshot.
“We are hangover compatible,” said Toby Rush, EyeVerify’s chief executive.
Using biometric markers isn’t new, of course, as devices like smartphones use fingerprint identification to unlock their phones, or to sign into apps — including banking apps – on those devices. MasterCard recently launched a “Selfie Pay” feature that lets users confirm their identity and pay for mobile purchases with a photo of themselves.
Wells Fargo will also soon let non-business customers sign into their accounts using mobile apps with fingerprint identification, the company says.
Wells Fargo looks to eye-scan security [Los Angeles Times]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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