YOU COULD SOON BE PAYING FOR SHOPPING WITH YOUR FACES

A Finnish startup called Uniqul has launched what it calls the first ever payment platform based on facial recognition.

The platform requires that a camera is positioned at the checkout or petrol pump to take photos of  shoppers’ faces when they are ready to pay.

A customer nods at the camera and the software scans his face. It then compares the image to a database of stored faces and matches it to stored payment details in order to complete the transaction. The shopper confirms the transaction using a touchscreen display. #LOBATAN

The company claims that the technology is securely protected by 'military grade algorithms' capable of identifying even the smallest of distinguishing features of identical twins.

In other futuristic plans

Diebold, an American company plans to introduce Facial recognition to cash machines(ATMs) in the future that will scan the faces of customers to authorise their withdrawals.

The design from Ohio-based security firm Diebold can also set up a transaction in advance to make it possible to send money to a third person.

PayPal also plans to introduce payments in space with its recently launched PayPal Galactic. The Company wants to be able to deliver payments outside of Earth and is working with companies such as Virgin Galactic to see how this would be possible.

Now let you and I analyse the pros and cons of all of these stuff as it concerns us:

1.      Whether people are willing to let Uniqul file their face away in a database of customers is one big question to be answered later.

2.      The basic assumption behind Uniqul's checkout process is that you should never have to do anything but be yourself when paying for something. No wallet. No iPhone app. Just a smile—or a grimace depending on your mood. But you're still going to need to carry around a debit card or cash for everywhere without a face-reading kiosk anyways.

3.      Is the 5-second transaction (assuming it goes smoothly) going to really do much for you over a 15-second swipe-and-PIN purchase?

4.      And finally, privacy issues. Will people that aren't using the service feel comfortable in front of the face-scanner, even if it's not scanning their faces?