NEWS One in three banking customers is ready to embrace biometric technologies in the hope of adding greater security to their finances.
Card cloning, PIN theft by shoulder surfing and high-profile phishing attacks are all undermining consumer confidence in secure banking and many would be happy to use biometric solutions such as digital fingerprints to add an extra layer of authentication and security, according to Fujitsu Services.
Fujitsu interviewed UK banking customers and found one in three would like their banks to start using biometrics.
Fujitsu claims to have already enjoyed success in Japan with trials of biometric cashpoints where customers' palms are read. The system works using a proprietary Fujitsu algorithm which creates a pattern of the blood vessels in the palm using an infra-red scan. It is then checked against patterns which can either be stored in the system or on a bank card.
Ann Hosford, business development manager for financial services at Fujitsu, said: "UK banks need to draw on the experience of other financial institutions around the world if card fraud in the UK is to be reduced."
"Biometric security can be used to build customer confidence and to reduce PIN theft," added Hosford.
One of the greatest concerns about biometrics is their reliability, though such concerns owe much to headlines written in the earliest days of public trials.
One of the areas the technology fell down on was with false negatives - instances when individuals were declined services on the grounds the machines didn't recognise them. This was particularly common with Asian women who had very fine skin but results could also be jeopardised by the use of hand cream or cuts, scratches and blemishes.
The other major headache is on the logistics side: getting customers to come in and register their details and also providing the new hardware and infrastructure.
Hosford told silicon.com: "Potentially of course this could be a hurdle as people are required to actually do something and banks will incur the costs."
However, Hosford believes the money saved from fraud and the ability to regrow customer confidence will provide their own rewards for the banks. Hosford also predicted such implementations won't happen overnight and gradual rollout will ease the headache of signing up customers.
Comments
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1. anonymous
Finger scanning offers "low friction" means for authentication, allows more than one user in a household to individually authenticate using a *single*, shared device into as many sites as accept it, and the device is worthless if lost or stolen. If lost, just go to Frys, Best Buy, or other consumer electronics store and pick up another one.
Add to those benefits the fact that the device itself is being integrated into keyboards and laptops, so the availability will only grow.
Contrast that with what eTrade and AOL have started doing - having me carry a per-user, per-site token... Nuts!
2. Peter Craik
Some UK banks have already started to look at the use of biometrics. Fingerprints are immediately rejected as the banks know they cannot guarantee the provacy of such a database....the police would be far too keen to acquire such a fingerprint database and, despite the banks' best intentions to maintain the integrity of their database, they are under no illusions that they would be forced to comply with any subpoena issued by a legal body which requests this database.
The best biometric solution which provides security and a continuation of the general public's traditional means of acceptance of, agreement to, etc is electronic handwritten biometric signatures...electronic handwritten signatures are, quite simply, an extension of the current paper-based system, easily implemented and accepted by any customer base. Sadly, this technology is too often ignored by media such as silicon.com when biometrics are discussed.
3. mark SPLINTER
why trust this report? it comes from fujitsu! and what happened to the panacea of chip and pin? (Ed note. The article should make it clear the research was into biometrics being used at ATMs, or cashpoints. Chip and PIN is a point of sale implementation - most countries already use PIN authentication at ATMs.)
4. John Hobson
If banks do adopt finger print ID, I hope they take account of South African experience where thumb print ID was required. Muggers would steal credit cards and cut the thumb off the victim to use as ID. The banks then started to use machines that could detect a pulse in the thumb. As the Italians say 'When the rule is made the loop hole is made'.
5. Karen Challinor
And how does this technology guarantee that
A) the finger is still alive and attached to its owner (Ed note. Most sophisticated biometrics technologies have 'liveness' tests. For more, read our Biometrics Q&A: http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/protectingid/0,3800002220,39123336,00.htm).
B) the owner is not under duress (Ed note. This can be true of PIN numbers though as well.)
One possible saving grace of a pin is a duress code that notifies the police on use, except that I have yet to see one implemented.
6. Graham Coles
This is just another example of buzzword branding.
I wonder how many customers 'want' an intel processor in their laptop just because of that stupid jingle. I wonder how many of them suffered with short battery life while others using better risc processors had lower power consumption and higher performance ... but undoubtably they still want the one that makes the funny noise in the adverts.
Now everyone want biometrics apparently. I wonder if they know what biometrics are, or how a japanese student fooled most of the fingerprint readers using a cheap blob of household gelatin and a set of fingerprints lifted from a glass.
I also wonder what these people will think when they cut their finger, put a plaster over it and suddenly find themselves unable to purchase goods with their cards or get cash out of a cashpoint!
:-)
7. anonymous
If 1 in 3 bank users want biometric cards, then 2 in 3 of us don't.
8. Mark SPLINTER
fao ed. yes i know chip and pin is not the same thing, i was pointing out that there is always some new technology to solve all our problems, pushed by... technology makers... and then another one comes along the year after. nobody ever asks why we still have a problem, they just implement the new solution and the glorious wheels of commerce keep turning.
9. anonymous
There are NO Privacy concerns if you use Biometrics with a smartcard. The template is stored on the card, NOT a database. "Your card" is the database!
10. Daryl Coldwell
Biometrics will provide more security in all transactions for bank customers. This is a fact, the question is will it be excepted. If the customer has panic about his data being stored, then this is easily solved the same way PKI is solved. With a trusted Data center. If the customer has panic about fingers being cut off, or plastic markings being used, this is solved by many companies with thermal readers or other patents solving the solution with new readers.
The main question is the Terminal companies and the banks working together to bring a solution that can be used now and not later.
Password and pin is easily broken down, and I think most people forget their card or pin much easier then having their finger (or fingers) to use to do bank transactions.