Newsroom

October 08, 2015

MasterCard testing 'selfie' authentications, more

MasterCard, a NAFCU Services Preferred Partner, this week announced a suite of new technology solutions – including the ability to take "selfies" – for authentication of consumers' identities during online purchases.

"Today, people shop on all sorts of devices, and they expect technology to simplify and secure the transaction," MasterCard President of Enterprise Security Solutions Ajay Bhalla said Tuesday. "This is exactly what Identity Check delivers."

Fast Company, reporting on the new program, said every time a consumer makes a MasterCard purchase using the app on their phone, a picture is taken of them. "The picture is essentially used to authenticate the user's identity in two-step authentication on top of the password, and is cross-compared against a picture of the user MasterCard has on file," the article explains.

MasterCard's new selfie program, MasterCard Identity Check, is currently being tested at NAFCU-member First Tech Federal Credit Union in Silicon Valley and by other stakeholders, Fast Company notes.

Fast Company reports MasterCard is also working on several other biometric, two-factor authentication tests: heartbeat readers worn on a user's wrist, which essentially uses a heartbeat as an individual signature; voice recognition; and iris recognition.

U.S. financial institutions generally should be able to participate in the middle of 2016, with a global expansion in 2017.