TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Supermarket: Let Your Fingers do the Paying

Re: Supermarket: Let Your Fingers do the Paying

jmeissen@aracnet.com
4 Feb 2005 22:29:38 GMT

In article <telecom24.52.8@telecom-digest.org>, <ranck@vt.edu> wrote:

> I don't know, but presumably they would not have to have
> their card with them. The biometric fingerprint scan provides
> a positive ID and the store can just charge the purchase to
> the cutomer's account on file. You could then leave the card
> at home either on purpose or by mistake but still have no
> problem at the checkout.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is reliability. It's one thing to
accurately read a sequence of digits that can be validated by a
checksum. It's something else to accurately match a scanned image to
an original scan. I know it's not as simple as that, but they also
have to account for orientation, dirt, scars, etc. I'm sure that with
a small sample there's effectively a 100% match confidence. But as the
population to match against grows, how reliable is the system? There
are no checksums associated with fingerprints.

It's easy to say that fingerprints are unique, so they make a perfect
identifier. But interpreting fingerprints is not always so perfect. We
had a classic and high-profile example up here in Oregon recently when
a lawyer was detained for months as a terrorist on the basis of an
incorrectly matched fingerprint.

John Meissen jmeissen@aracnet.com

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