TL;DR: Recently, Ajay Bhalla, president of cyber and intelligence solutions for Mastercard, explained during an interview how the giant process payments business (between merchant banks and card-issuing banks) is researching behavioral biometrics as a form of customer authentification.

Mastercard Testing Behavioral Biometrics for Authentification

“We are working with transport organizations where your face or gait will authenticate you,” Bhalla told Marketwatch. “The way you hold your phone, which ear you use, and how your fingers touch the buttons are all unique to you. We have been testing heartbeat, vein technology, and the way people walk to authenticate people.”

Behavioral biometric tech gained steam over the last couple of years especially in Europe, prompted by the continent’s Payment Services Directive (PSD2), as the banking industry there considered heavily the attack vector that is passwords. Authentication through iris, voice, fingerprints are somewhat familiar to smartphone users around the world, as iPhone users are aware. However, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) began experimenting further in biotech authentification for its wealthier clientele.

The RBS, for example, measured a customer’s movements, including the angles while holding a device, which fingers are used to navigate, and even the amount of pressure to type. Companies such as BioCatch, contracted by RBS, attempted to also determine authentication by way of gestures, mouse movements, etc. It’s a growing, multi-billion dollar industry.

US Military is Watching Bio Data Experiments Closely

Indeed, Mastercard is piloting fingerprint-scanning cards in South Africa and the UK, combining “chip technology with a fingerprint scanner to verify the cardholder’s identity when making purchases in-store or online,” Pymnts reported. The company is relying on NuData Security, and governments are watching its experiments closely. “One of the largest B2B buyers in the world — the U.S. military — is reportedly also getting into behavioral biometrics in a ‘big way,’ showing the potential appeal of the technology beyond payments,” Pymnts also noted.

Privacy advocates and civil libertarians are having a tough time keeping up with innovation on that scale (Europe’s partial answer is its GDPR), and this has created a potential opening for the likes of cryptocurrency projects. Coins such as Monero have a decidedly privacy-oriented bent, but it and others are increasingly legislated against around the globe. Still other coins, like Bitcoin Cash, have dedicated tools, applications, such as CashShuffle and CashFusion, attached to wallets as non-custodial ways to obfuscate transactions.

A user could wear a band around their wrist that measures the pulse and constantly authenticates you. Mastercard’s Ajay Bhalla

They can be alternatives to the legacy financial system and its insistence upon identification and tracking. However, a great many crypto enthusiasts access their funds by way of smartphones and use on/off ramps through traditional fiat networks, both of which ensnare them potentially in a behavioral biometric universe. “This is the kind of data that usually has some kind of consumer protections around it, but here there’s none at all. Companies are using these systems with no notice of any kind,” Pam Dixon of the World Privacy Forum warned.

The tension also seems to be in a desire for convenience. If companies like Mastercard are to be believed, customers might be willing to trade some privacy for the ease of access to, say, public transportation by the way they walk instead of carrying around a typical bus pass. A customer’s unique gait and pulse could combine for a security measure, using closed-circuit cameras for identification, linking them to a valid payment card account. “A user could wear a band around their wrist that measures the pulse and constantly authenticates you,” Mastercard’s Bhalla told Marketwatch.

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