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Eye Tracking: Biometrics and Your Money

Eye Tracking: Biometrics and Your Money In just the last month, I’ve read at least three articles reporting ATM machine fraud through the use of “skimmers.” Last year thieves managed to steal over $100,000 from customers’ accounts at one bank alone in Staten Island, NY. Thieves will set up a makeshift scanning device to skim customers’ card information, so that when they dip their card for cash, they’re unknowingly giving up access to their bank accounts. The device captures card numbers while secretly filming you from behind or somewhere on the machine as you punch in your PIN. Skimmers can be quite sophisticated, incorporating features like the ability to send a text message to a scammer’s mobile phone whenever a card is swiped. There are plenty of tips online to spot skimming devices, and a Google search should do the trick if you’re really interested.

But a recent blog post we found on biometrics isn’t too worried about skimmers or, rather, won’t be, once biometric technology is more available and can do the trick. With the rapid development of banking technology worldwide, ATMs have changed the way customers deal with managing their money. ATMs are widely available and conveniently placed in markets, bars, airports, shops, and on street corners, and customers can take money, send money, transfer money, make deposits, pay bills – the list goes on. But with excessive convenience comes a slew of new security concerns, ones that could lead to more opportunities for theft.

Personal identification numbers (PIN) do something to deter the lazier of crooks, but if someone really wants to get into your account, there’s not a whole lot stopping them from preying upon you. A PIN is only four numbers anyway, and many people keep obvious numbers such as birthdays or consecutive numbers (1234) in order to keep track of the many passwords and keys circulating in our daily lives. But as a theft deterrent, PINs can only do so much.

The author of the post referred to earlier write ups about biometric identification, something we’ve touched on here at Eye Tracking Update in the past. There are a variety of approaches when it comes to biometric analysis, and as humans, we have unique biological characteristics like fingerprints, handprints, iris patterns, and general physical makeup. Biometrics are often used in laboratory and military applications, and some prototypes are underway in the banking industry in an effort to provide a more secure way to identify bank customers.

Eye tracking technology can play a role here as well, providing infrastructure or platforms for iris scanning. But the article raises an interesting point about a significant population of illiterate people in Bolivia who, are apparently quite mistrusting of PINs and haven’t much experience with ATMs and banks in general. The challenge of banking infrastructure in developing nations is not a novel problem in a world of microfinance and microloans, and some companies are beginning to introduce biometrics like fingerprint scanners into poorer countries in an effort to create monetary infrastructure and security. But efforts like these are twofold, based on comfort and convenience as well as secutity, because people have been shown more likely to use an ATM when it doesn’t involve carrying a card and using a PIN. A simple scan of a fingerprint or an iris and you have all the access you need, cutting the risk of PIN theft and stolen cards.

Biometric: A Reliable Technology to Secure ATM Transactions

Eye Tracking: Biometrics and Your Money

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