Facial recognition payment would involve simply looking at a screen to pay for goods. People can already pay with their faces in China, although there are downsides to the way that country uses the technology to track its citizens.
Even here in New Zealand, there are questions around ethics and security when it comes to paying with your face. Also, as researchers from the University of Auckland and Queensland University of Technology found that the technology relies on consumers feeling confident enough to use it.
By using facial recognition payment we surrender our biometric data to Aussie banks and American credit card companies and, as we know data breaches happen, no matter how much the organisations claim your data is 100% secure.
Study co-author Shasha Wang from QUT pointed out that paying by face isn’t the same as using your face to unlock your phone. “Banks and retailers will have customers’ faces stored in their systems and some people have concerns about this, especially with the rise of deepfakes and other scams,” Wang said.
The research found that people were also apprehensive regarding overspending and compulsive shopping. There is that, although most people are able to pay on their phones these days and are rarely separated from them.
AI (artificial intelligence) expert Alex Sims, professor of commercial law at the University of Auckland Business School, doesn’t entirely blame people who refuse to pay with facial recognition systems. She can envision a world where people are forced to pay with their faces.
She also worries about the potential for financial crime. Criminals are already finding ways to spoof faces and use deepfakes to get around the facial recognition security, Sims says. Unlike a credit card, you can’t cancel your face and replace it. “You can’t change your face and you can’t change your name and your date of birth.
After seeing examples of cyber criminals stealing facial recognition data and using AI to create deepfakes for authentication, anti-virus vendor Eset concluded that facial recognition would need to be combined with another method such as fingerprint unlock or text/email.
Criminals catch up with new security systems fast. What’s more, new technology has unexpected drawbacks that emerge over time.
A case in point is that when I first wrote about fingerprint identification technology in the 1990s after attending a fintech conference, a chilling issue emerged. The problem at that stage was that ATM machines couldn’t differentiate between a live or a dead finger. Fingerprint identification for cash withdrawals has never appeared in any ATM I ever visited.
The march of technology has turned into a sprint since then and while AI and other new developments can assist greatly in our lives and finances, they can also be turned against us by scammers, or governments for that matter.
New Zealanders are already under constant attack by scammers and it’s only going to get worse. According to Mastercard nearly 29% of Kiwis and 18% of our businesses have been targeted by deepfake scams in the past year. Scammers use generative AI to impersonate people. The scams are becoming more believable by the day.
New facial recognition scams will arise. AI can be used to spoof faces already and it’s only going to get better.
Reports emerged earlier this year of hackers using Trojan software to harvest facial recognition data and then used that to break into bank accounts in Vietnam. These scams know no borders, and it’s only a matter of time before the same happens in New Zealand.
Equifax in the UK warned consumers to stop and think twice if they’re offered the option for their image to be captured for facial recognition purposes.
Other quite frightening scams are emerging and Kiwis need to be wary. The fake QR code scam has become common overseas in recent months. Victims are tricked into scanning QR codes, which allows access to their phone and financial data such as bank account login details.
The QR codes may be stickers on parking meters that victims mistake for genuine ways to pay. Or the victims receive an unexpected parcel in the mail with a gift and an invitation to scan a QR code to see who sent it.
