Speeding Up The Checkout Line With Biometrics

Informationweek.com ^ | 13 March, 2002 | Jennifer Maselli

[brityank]

Speeding Up The Checkout Line
With Biometrics
March 13, 2002

A Seattle supermarket next month will begin using a
service that lets shoppers use fingerprints to authorize
payment for groceries.

By Jennifer Maselli

Customers at the Thrift Way supermarket in Seattle next month can speed through the checkout, using personal ID numbers and their fingerprints to authorize payment for groceries.

"It's really about customer convenience and security," says Paul Kapioski, president and owner of Thrift Way, which is using biometric E-payment software from Indivos Inc. to set up the service. "For one, you won't have to dig your credit cards out of your purse or wallet, and you're assured that no one else is using your cards in our store." He adds that deployment was relatively simple because existing point-of-sale machines didn't have to be replaced. Readers on the credit-card machines at the checkout counters capture customers' fingerprints and send encrypted data to one of Indivos' four data centers. That fingerprint is matched against the one scanned into the database when the customer enrolled in the program. After authentication, the transaction is routed through conventional financial networks like any other credit-card or debit-card transaction.

The use of biometric identification for E-payment authentication has been slow to catch on in the United States. Analysts have said biometric technology makes perfect sense for E-payments and will help lower the risk of identity theft, but there have been few deployments. One barrier to deployment is that the United States lags far behind Europe and Asia when it comes to wireless technologies, says James Van Dyke, research director for research firm Jupiter Communications.

Another barrier is that there are too many options, Van Dyke says. "There are about 12 different types of biometric authentication and verification technologies out there, and that will only confuse consumers and inhibit standardization," he says. The industry needs to standardize on two or three technologies, he says, adding that the ones that seem to make the most sense right now are fingerprint and voice scanning because they're less-intrusive and data-intensive compared with iris and facial scanning.

It will be about five years before biometrics infiltrates the E-payments space, analysts say, but use of the technology by the government and businesses could help consumers grow accustomed to the idea.

Businesses mostly use biometrics for employee authentication. For example, Symetric Sciences Inc., a Montreal company that develops software to track clinical trials of pharmaceutical products, has embedded NetNanny Software Inc.'s BioPassword technology in its products. Pharmaceutical company employees who use Symetric Sciences software are authenticated based on the rhythm of their typing. BioPassword, which is priced at $100 per seat for 50 users, records and ties a person's unique typing style to that individual's network account for user authentication. It doesn't require special hardware and is installed on a corporate network, with each desktop running a BioPassword client.

Copyright © 2002 CMP Media LLC

[brityank]

I was browsing at Barnes & Noble last week, and found a very small security strip tucked into the pages of a paperback book. Key that along with the idea of minuscule taggants that were proposed for use in explosives, and the nanotechnology that is being worked on around the world, and they will soon be able to track everything you have as you walk by a detector. Orwell and his sycophants will be positively euphoric to attain this level of monitoring and control.

[brityank]

Another pit in the morass.

Ping.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

In another 10 years, they'll slip an identity chip under the skin of newborns "for their protection."
I predict the first of these will occur in Seattle.

[Eala]

Customers at the Thrift Way supermarket in Seattle next month can speed through the checkout, using personal ID numbers and their fingerprints to authorize payment for groceries.

LOL. Remember how the use of credit cards was going to allow one to "speed through the checkout"? Cold hard cash is still fastest...

Not surprised they're trying this in Sodom on the Sound, though...

[ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds]

Now the government will be able to track your diet.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

If you use one of those "saver" cards where you shop, the grocery company already does.

[fjsva]

Fastest way to speed up the checkout lines is to add more clerks.

This is why I never (among other reasons) go to K-mart anymore...... 20 min waiting in cashier line -- 5 minutes to ring up purchase -- 1 minute to pay with debit card.

Clear to me that my fingerprint won't speed this trip up.

[spanky_mcfarland]

"It's really about customer convenience and security," says Paul Kapioski, president and owner of Thrift Way

It's really about creating a database of all things a person buys for marketing purposes and list selling/sharing.

[contessa machiaveli]

i purchased an italian greyhound puppy 2 months ago and the chips are implanted in infancy. so human chips can't be far behind.

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to and descriptions of the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[kancel]

In another 10 years, they'll slip an identity chip under the skin of newborns "for their protection." I predict the first of these will occur in Seattle.

When my first was born I told my husband "Don't worry about me, stay with that baby and make sure they don't do anything bad to him!!"- We had already been talking about something like that happening much like they do to dogs. My mom kept asking why I kept the babies in my room instead of shipping them off to the nursery so I could "have some relaxation time" and I each time I had to tell her that hospital officials were the LAST people I trusted with my babies out of my sight.

Since I live near Seattle I have to ask. Why do you think it would be here- just because of this Thrift Way place or some other reason?

[freeeee]

use of the technology by the government and businesses could help consumers grow accustomed to the idea.

I'd sooner live in a cardboard box and eat from a dumpster than submit to this indignity, and I'm not ever changing my mind.

[Delbert]

they just keep on hacking ...a little at a time. it's all in the name of security, its all in the interest of customer convenience and service. Pretty soon you wont be able to buy a box of twinkies without a tattoo on your forehead. the statments about hospitals not letting you take babies home with out a bio id chip is frightening, i think they all ready insist on a ss number?

[VA Advogado]

I hope the feds set up a system like this so we can pay our taxes. I hate writing checks. Great idea Seattle!

[VA Advogado]

This is why I never (among other reasons) go to K-mart anymore...... 20 min waiting in cashier line -- 5 minutes to ring up purchase -- 1 minute to pay with debit card.

Supermarket theorem: The ratio of customers to cashiers is the same regardless of the number of lanes which are open.

[freeeee]

the statments about hospitals not letting you take babies home with out a bio id chip is frightening,

Where'dya hear that one?

i think they all ready insist on a ss number?

I don't have any kids, but if do and they won't let me take them home from the hospital for any reason, well.... I'd um, uh, lets say "express my displeasure".

[poindexter]

"Now the government will be able to track your diet."

Fat tax is coming.

[anniegetyourgun]

It's called E-file.

[VA Advogado]

It's called E-file.

Can you pay by credit card? Sounds cool.

[anniegetyourgun]

I believe so.