Soon your MasterCard purchases will need to be approved with a selfie

MasterCard is trialling new technology that could allow customers to pay online by taking a selfie rather than entering a password.

The system will be controlled by using the MasterCard phone app, which will display a pop-up after you pay for something, with the option to authenticate using a fingerprint or photo.

The resulting hash will be compared with the stored one to approve payments. You can choose to set a fingerprint or your face to be recognized for security purposes.

The blink is crucial, says Mastercard, as that prevents thiefs from holding up a picture of you.

MasterCard is working on a new biometric technology named ID Check which, a few months down, will let you to make payments at stores just by clicking your selfie! “And I’m sure they’re doing the appropriate stuff to guard it”, assured Phillip Dunkelpberger of biometrics firm Nok Nok Labs. Ajay Bhalla, the person who’s in charge of pitching innovative ideas to MasterCard, thinks “the new generation, which is into selfies” will ultimately “find it cool“.

MasterCard says that privacy is maintained by not transmitting or saving images of fingers or faces. He said that people were able to take a photo of someone, “present it to the camera, and the phone would unlock”. The innovative tech via a new mobile app will help to reduce credit card fraud and block access to online shoppers’ credit card numbers after they become victims of online criminals.

MasterCard has already partnered up with major players in the smartphone market such as Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft and even BlackBerry to bring this technology to all smartphone platforms.

The facial recognition scan will map out your face digitally and transmit it to MasterCard.

Mastercard’s facial recognition trial involves 500 users in the United States. It is also experimenting with other forms of identification such as fingerprint scanning and voice recognition.