NEW YORK — A firm with a background in security cards and systems has developed a card which will require a cardholder to validate their fingerprint on the card before it is activated to conduct a transaction.
"With this technology, any kind of online transaction–product purchases, funds transfers, bill payment authorizations and more–can be handled with total security," said Colin Hendrick, CEO of SmartMetric, Inc. "Credit card or debit card numbers needn't ever be revealed online again. We believe our technology to be the ultimate solution for safe, assured financial authorizations."
The company's breakthrough wallet-sized device is similar in size and thickness to a conventional credit card; on the card, however, is a microchip/sensor unit capable of reading any fingerprint, even ones that are dirty or calloused. By touching the card's sensor, a digital signature of the fingerprint is permanently stored on the card. Each time the card is to be used, the person activates the card by touching the sensor. Readings are 99.999% accurate.
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Hendrick said the technology is based on having both a fingerprint reader in the card as well as a record of the cardholders fingerprint against which to compare. Currently he estimated that the costs to manufacture of the card are significantly higher than the costs of the traditional cards, but he believed that economies of scale would draw the cost down should the technology begin to catch on.
Perhaps most appealing is that since the fingerprint check only permits the card to be activated before a transaction is processed, the usual card readers at merchants would not need to be modified for the new cards, he said. "We can work with the existing technology just fine," he said.
The company is not shopping the technology to major card issuers who might want to start offering it to cardholders, perhaps for a fee or at a premium.
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