Until, recently, selfies were primarily considered a great way of taking self-portraits or capturing spontaneous moments with friends family. However, several international financial institutions – including MasterCard – are now testing the feasibility of allowing their customers to use selfies instead of passwords while shopping online.
This means that instead of the hassle of remembering passwords for all the online shopping portals you have an account with; all you need is a 3G-enabled camera phone to log onto a website. Once logged on, you take a selfie, upload it to sign into your account and make your purchases.a. Sounds simple? Not quite. Like most technology is still in the beta testing phase and several kinks need to be straightened out before this selfie-based verification system becomes a reality.
The main deterrent, according to internet privacy experts, is that professional hackers can easily manipulate and misuse images or access photographs from other people’s smartphones. If this security threat is not fixed, then cases of identity thefts are likely to increase substantially, particularly in Pakistan, where cell phone thefts are a common occurrence.
In another development, ‘fingerprint authentication technology’ may also make passwords obsolete in the near future. Once your fingerprints have been verified to confirm your identity, you will be automatically signed into your account, making online purchases literally a click away. Tech and security experts believe that the prototype-to-market time lag for this will be considerably shorter compared to the selfie -based sign in system, given that many of the latest smartphones- including the Samsung Galaxy Series and iPhone 5S and 6 (all easily available in Pakistan) – are already factory-fitted with fingerprint authentication features.
By Jafer Khan