MasterCard Rolls out Selfie Authentication For Customers to Make Secure Online Payments

MasterCard Incorporated which is an American multinational financial services corporation that operates with various financial institutions to issue credit cards is now planning to ditch the conventional password and use selfies to approve online purchases. Everybody hates passwords as it is a tedious task to memorize different passwords. We might sometimes misremember the essential passwords that may potentially lead us into trouble. In order to overcome that vulnerability, Mastercard may have cracked the code on replacing it with selfies.

Mastercard has launched a new mobile app that allows customers to replace their passwords that authenticate their online purchases with selfies or fingerprints. MasterCard has confirmed that it is to begin accepting selfies and fingerprints as an alternative to old-fashioned passwords when verifying IDs for online payments. It has announced that the program will be rolled out by prominent banks in the US, Canada and the UK and some European countries over the following few months.

How to Make Payments via Selfie Authentication?

Customers who prefer to make payments via the new method of authentication via taking a selfie, you need to follow the simple steps mentioned below:

• If you want to try selfie authentication, you need to download a special MasterCard app that will let them take a photo each time they make an online purchase.

• As usual, you need to first enter your credit card information during an online payment. You’ll then have to hold your device up to your face to take a quick picture.

• The users will have to blink to confirm that they’re not holding a photograph in front of the camera.
• Their face (or fingerprint) will be scanned to prove that they are not hackers or criminals who are making a purchase.

• The scan will verify that it’s a legitimate selfie provided by the genuine users. MasterCard says its algorithms can tell when someone is trying to fool the system by using a video.
• The fingerprint authentication can be used on new smartphones, including the latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S.

Are Selfie-Approved Payments Safe?

MasterCard says that the new biometrics-based payments service was actually introduced to secure and maintain user data protected. The company says that no selfies, voice commands or fingerprints are transmitted to its servers for storage and that the mobile app transforms everything into ones and zeros.

This code only will be sent to MasterCard’s servers, and it will be processed and analyzed for conformities to the user’s default biometrics. Security experts aren’t actually seeking forward to biometrics-based payment verification systems. This is because, while passwords and PINs can be changed once compromised in a data rupture, once biometrics data has been succumbed or lost, the user may find it laborious to turn their face or voice just for the sake of their bank account’s protection.

MasterCard will be testing a wider range of authentication methods that includes facial identification, voice recognition, and cardiac rhythm through a wearable wristband. Users will be able to download the Mastercard app or software to their PC, tablet or smartphone to use the system.