October 12, 2001

8:36 AM

Face Recognition ATMsIn Australia, a tech company is developing face recognition ATMs, which operate on biometric technology (face, voice, and lip-movement). This technology could be an alternative to PINs. Is this idea really convenient or really freaky?
posted by MeetMegan (5 comments total)

interesting, but could be problematic.

particularly when the mugger no longer needs the p.i.n. to access the machine - just your face.

makes me wonder if the machine will recognise weaponry too.
posted by bwg at 8:55 AM on October 12, 2001

A company in the SF Bay Area was doing that for a while, but they just went out of business... a friend worked on the interface. I guess the biometric part was pretty dead-on, and they put these things in Circle-K stores throughout the southwest US. I think they were check-cashing devices, rather than straight ATMs.
posted by fuzzynavel at 9:22 AM on October 12, 2001

I really don't see any privacy problem, but the idea itself isn't all that good. I'm not going to wait for the darn thing to do my face 5 minutes at a time. Or look really silly putting my face up or even saying anything. It's just extremely silly. What of the mute?

The only real use I can see this have is if say your card was stolen, but there is really no difference between it and the pin number, unless you were to write down your pin number on the card for the mugger to use.
posted by tiaka at 11:11 AM on October 12, 2001

Um... what about joint back accounts? Also, I get my boyfriend to go get me cash from the machine all the time. We swap cards *often* so, what then?

I agree to about the mugger only needing your face... so, as the mugger bashes you over the head while you're approaching the ATM they can just stick your face up to access your money.
posted by misanthropy at 12:05 AM on October 13, 2001

Biometric Technology: An article from this past Sunday talking about this exact technology. Very enlightening. (requires free registration)
posted by CraftyHotMelt at 5:43 PM on October 13, 2001