“After painstakingly typing a password to download every Angry Birds update, Apple iPhone users got a break with the latest 5s model’s fingerprint scanner. The addition could mark a turning point for biometric security technology, long a subject of concern to privacy advocates,” John Stevens reports for USA Today. “Called Touch ID, it makes the smartphones less susceptible to theft or misuse, and owners are lapping it up, according to Apple.”
“Company research shows that 83% use a fingerprint scan to unlock their 5s phones, compared with fewer than half who previously bothered to secure their devices with passwords,” Stevens reports. “Banks such as Bank of America, with 15 million active mobile accounts, may use the technology in future iPhone applications.”
“This month, Apple laid out plans to open up Touch ID to app developers when it releases a new mobile operating system by fall. Ultimately, that may let iPhone users skip passwords with the press of a finger to enter secure areas such as bank accounts,” Stevens reports. “‘Coming from Apple, Touch ID will go a long way to boost the concept of biometrics,’ says David Penn, a researcher at Seattle-based Finovate Group, which focuses on banking. ‘If anybody can bring the banks along, it might be Apple.'”
Read more in the full article here.
iOS 8 opens up TouchID for applications. This means that, theoretically, banking applications can use it for transactions. Of course, there are risks: for example you are sleeping and your greedy fraudulent girlfriend/boyfriend takes your iPhone and your finger to unlock it and then spend your money for goods for yourself.
There is no protection that would help to avoid this, you can not determine whether the owner of fingerprint is sleeping or not. The solution could be two-factor identification: user has to touch the sensor and to look at the camera.
Since no evidence of this coming is here, I am not sure how eager banks will be able to provide TouchID-only authorization for transactions. In my view, banks have to offer this option for convenience of users — I personally would take it — after fully warning about risks.
Correction: “… and then spend your money for goods for himself/hersel”.
No sign? What about all the health sensor technology Apple is developing. Though most suitable for an iWatch this technology should be able to determine that the person using the device is indeed the person the bio sensors says it is by its recorded norm for that person. They would be able to determine the person is awake and active too at some stage in development too. This would make a wonderful and automatic/semi automatic 2 stage authentication process.
Yeah, and your girlfriend/boyfriend could also put your hand in a bowl of water and make you pee the bed. Guess you shouldn’t go to bed drunk out of your skull.
This has nothing to do with being drunk. If you are sleeping and your finger touches TouchID, it works and you are awaken after that.
Girlfriend or boyfriend? Make up your mind.
I’ve heard that a Touch ID combined with a PIN number will be used as a double security test.
PIN number. Personal Identification Number number. Hmmm.
Good afternoon, Sir. We’re from the Department of Redundancy Department and we’re here to help.
More importantly, addition of PIN makes use of TouchID questionable — convenience is lost.
I doubt that a PIN will be needed for everything. I was referencing something like a bank or investment account where an added layer of security is more important than convenience. Buying a $40 item on Amazon or a latte from Starbucks is one thing, but access to to an online account that can bankrupt you is totally different.
Banks and similar organizations will still require a two factor system. One of those factors will be TouchID. The othe will be a PIN or a password.
In the long run this will be more secure than most of the current systems.
I would like TouchID-only option for banking transactions — at least for limited value of money moved. But, as I wrote, due to risks, banks will be hardly eager to allow it. As two-factor identification, the best solution would be on-camera recognition. But I am not hearing Apple readies it.
Won’t be long before that Touch ID scanner scans more than fingerprints. Bet that’ll be an unexpected asset in the health apps. 🙂
Demolition Man anyone?