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

Re: Supermarket: Let Your Fingers do the Paying

Hank Karl (notgiven@nothere.com)
Tue, 15 Feb 2005 09:41:44 -0500

On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 02:04:53 -0500, Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
wrote:

> By Jo Best
> Story last modified Tue Feb 01 12:18:00 PST 2005

> A supermarket has given its customers the choice of paying by
> fingerprint at a store in the state of Washington -- and has found them
> surprisingly willing to use the biometric system.
<snip>

> http://news.com.com/2100-1029-5559074.html

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not understand one thing: If
> people have already been verified as to their ability and
> willingness to pay for their groceries through their credit card
> and their personal identification has been verified in much the same
> way by the credit card people, then *why* would people want to go one
> step further by enrolling in 'Pay by Touch'? Is this intended as one
> way to 'save them time' by not having to sign a credit card slip? In
> other words, touch your thumb or finger somewhere rather than taking
> a couple seconds to sign a slip of paper? Now, if the grocery people
> had set up their own credit system *in place of Visa/MC* by using a
> thumb/finger print, I can see where that might be useful, but
> otherwise, why bother? PAT]

You could give your kids access to your account so they can buy
groceries for you, but you'd have to hope they don't load up on candy
and soda :-)

On the other hand, its possible to fake fingerprints. Fortunately,
the only files of fingerprints I know of are kept by law enforcement
agencies, and we can certainly trust them not to commit this type of
fraud.

(I'll leave a lot of room for Pat's response.)

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have nothing more to say on this
topic. PAT]

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