Cash, Credit, or Fingerprints?

January 25, 2006 5:31 PM

Cash, credit, or fingerprint? Biometrics are hot. Since we've already tired of our RFID credit cards, Wal-Mart and Costco are exploring fingerprint scanners as a means of payment in their stores. Pay by Touch, which has already installed its technology in various Cub Foods, bigg's, Piggly Wiggly, and Farm Fresh stores, is proud to change the way we all say "I am me". But didn't we already decide that sometimes fingerprints say "I am someone else"? [via]
posted by youarenothere (18 comments total)

Pay By Touch, which also oversees biometric payment at Cub Foods, Farm Fresh’s sister chain in the Midwest, maintains that the technology is secure and will not allow data hackers to grab personal information. Rayder said that a customer’s unique data points are converted into a mathematical equation, encrypted, and stored on IBM servers.

“The data cannot be reverse-engineered into a fingerprint,” she said.
posted by youarenothere at 5:35 PM on January 25, 2006

That'll make me feel better when their database gets haxxored.
posted by graventy at 5:40 PM on January 25, 2006

I'm guessing that before you use it you have to give up so much personal information that it makes the NSA jealous.
posted by furtive at 5:40 PM on January 25, 2006

I'm guessing that before you use it, you have to give up your fingerprint and your credit card number. Oh, and probably a signature, too. Just a guess.
posted by JekPorkins at 5:48 PM on January 25, 2006

Don't give up anything. Just use someone elses fingerprint.
posted by nonmyopicdave at 6:27 PM on January 25, 2006

Weren't they doing RFID tagging with fish a while back? Smaller than a grain of rice?
posted by Smedleyman at 7:14 PM on January 25, 2006

Well, it's no worse than using credit cards, I suppose. People who care at all about privacy will continue to use paper money. It's more easily machine-readable than a fingerprint, too.
posted by sfenders at 7:28 PM on January 25, 2006

It's more easily machine-readable than a fingerprint, too.

At least your finger won't get crumpled in your pocket. Unless you've got some sort of condition, in that case, dude, didn't mean to offend or anything. Sorry.
posted by luftmensch at 7:38 PM on January 25, 2006

I'm sure the Christain fundies are going to love this.
posted by infowar at 8:41 PM on January 25, 2006

"Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off..."
Matthew 18.8
posted by Goofyy at 9:55 PM on January 25, 2006

sfenders, yeah, paper money will work, until they phase it out and people are left with no choice. They have to enter the system or leave it altogether and go live in the woods and write manifestos on an old typewriter.
posted by fenriq at 11:42 PM on January 25, 2006

Luftmensch has it

What if you've just spent way too much time in the pool and your fingers are all pruned and you really really need a Twinkee? You'd be SOL. That's why I predict a huge market in "My little Fingerprint" kits. You'd be able to craft all sorts of cute little keychain or necklaces with your very own thumbprint replicated. I mean how else is little Jenny gonna spend Daddy's money? She'll need a copy of his thumbprint instead of his credit card. And it'll have to be fashionable too
posted by Gungho at 7:46 AM on January 26, 2006

Call me crazy, but maybe they could use both credit cards and the fingerprint. Kinda like the Mobil Speedpass and that sort of thing that they already have now. Wow, I just read that and I really am crazy.
posted by JekPorkins at 9:48 AM on January 26, 2006

luftmensch writes "At least your finger won't get crumpled in your pocket. Unless you've got some sort of condition, in that case, dude, didn't mean to offend or anything."

I tend to sand off or obscure with PVA glue my finger ridges on a fairly regular basis. I'm really hoping these kind of verification schemes don't become defacto required in the next 50 years.
posted by Mitheral at 10:33 AM on January 26, 2006

Wal-Mart is also planning another way to lower retail transaction costs: They want to start their own bank.
posted by sfenders at 11:43 AM on January 26, 2006

hey cool! free thumb amputation with every carjacking!
posted by troybob at 12:33 PM on January 26, 2006

What troybob said.
posted by Radio7 at 1:27 PM on January 26, 2006

If your credit card gets stolen, you just get a new one. What happens when your fingerprints get stolen? Get new fingers?
posted by amuseDetachment at 4:37 AM on January 27, 2006