July 13,2009
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How Safe is Electronic Identity?, Pt.3
New Technology Identifiers.What's important to remember is that the initial process of verification that the bank or organization conducts which verifies that the credit card consumer is who he says he is the most critical of them all. This may very be a labor intensive procedure for the credit card company, but if not verified accurately, the entire process is compromised. Technology developers have released several pieces of technology in the past year that rely on a totally different concept of identification than that of traditional sources. These new identifiers assign the user with a cryptographically mechanism which authenticates the credit card user in future transactions. The process is a token based system known in the industry as tokenization.
One tokenization process currently being tested overseas generates a one-time password that the credit card customer uses for that particular transaction. Growing in popularity is the biometrics process. Biometrics are the records of an individual's physiological or behavioral characteristics Physiological characteristics include body shape, fingerprints, face recognition, hand and palm prints, iris recognition, body scent, and DNA. Behavioral characteristics include the credit card holder's gait and voice. An example of a biometric fingerprint identity system is the one Disney uses at their theme parks with its multi day and annual passes.
Additional token systems include the Near Field Communication (NFC), and Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) which are chips embedded in cell phones that allow consumers to connect to credit card processors without compromising any personal information. Another benefit for the consumer is that these systems do not require them to have any additional hardware and comes with no added cost. The beauty of the NFC and USIM is that most cell manufacturers are currently manufacturing phones with this technology already embedded. Some manufactures like Nokia say that all their phones will have this new technology by 2010. It is certainly a feature to check out when shopping for your next cell phone.