Mastercard to allow European customers to pay using a selfie

Now a smile is no longer priceless: Mastercard to allow European customers to pay using a SELFIE

Mastercard is rolling out its biometric identity check for online payments

The technology will use facial recognition through the camera on devices

They will be required to blink to show the camera is looking at a real face

Customers will also be able to use the fingerprint scanner on some phones

It is being introduced in 12 countries including the UK, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Sweden following a series of trials in the US and Canada

Published: 08:15 EST, 4 October 2016 | Updated: 12:23 EST, 4 October 2016

According to the long-running advertising campaign for MasterCard, there are some things money can't buy – such as putting a smile on someone's face.

But now it seems the credit card company may finally be putting a price on the grin that can light up a person's face.

The company is rolling out new technology in Europe that allows customers to authorise payments with selfies.

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Mastercard has announced it is rolling out its 'Selfie Pay' service to 12 countries across Europe. It uses facial recognition to confirm the identity of customers when paying online (illustrated)

HOW SELFIE PAY WORKS

When making online payments Mastercard customers will be asked to use a live video of their face or their fingerprint to authorise transactions.

It will replace the need to input passwords, which is currently what is used.

Users will simply need to hold their phone up so their camera can take a live video of their face.

This will be matched to images held by Mastercard using facial recognition technology, similar to those used in biometeric passports.

During the process they will also be asked to blink, allowing the software to confirm it is seeing a real face rather than just a photograph.

It is being introduced in 12 countries including the UK, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Belgium and Sweden following a series of trials in the US and Canada.

In the US, currently only corporate users can use the system.

The company said it will roll out the technology, which has been nicknamed 'Selfie Pay' to the rest of the world next year.

'We are relentlessly focused on making the online payment experience near frictionless, without making any compromises on safety and security,' said Ajay Bhalla, president of enterprise risk and security at Mastercard.

'This is a significant milestone in the evolution of payments.

Shopping in person has been revolutionised thanks to advances like contactless cards, mobile payments and wearables, and now we are making Identity Check Mobile a reality for online shopping in Europe, and soon, the world.'

The service, officially called Identify Check Mobile, eliminates the need for cardholders to recall passwords.

It is aimed at reducing the time it takes to make checkout payments online.

Mastercard claims using biometric data like facial recognition or fingerprints can also increase the security.

The Mastercard technology uses similar facial recognition software to that used in biometric passports. It will replace the need to remember and type in complicated passwords when verifying online payments (illustrated)

Users simply need to hold their phone up so their camera can film their face and it will be matched to a record held by Mastercard.

They are then asked to blink, allowing the software to track how their face changes as they do so.

The blink is thought to be used to prove it is a real face and not merely a high resolution photograph being used to authorise the payment.

Those with fingerprint scanners on their smartphones, like recent models of Apple's iPhone and Samsung devices, will also be able to authorise payments using this technology too.

Mastercard plans to roll out the facial recognition payment authentication technology around the world next year, but it will be initially launched in 12 countries in Europe

Mastercard says the new Identify Check Mobile (pictured left) is more secure and more convenient for customers when verifying online payments (pictured right)

Recent research in the Netherlands during a trial of the new payments system by Mastercard showed that nine out of 10 preferred using biometric identification rather than passwords.

Many people struggle to remember the myriad of passwords and pin-numbers they have for different accounts online.

This often results in people either using easy to crack passwords like 123456 or writing them down.

Mastercard has introduced the new biometric identify check as the number of mobile payments has soared and new phones with biommetric technology is released (illustrated)

BRITONS LOVE SELFIES

Britons take 14.5 million selfies a day - but only 4.3 million of them are posted online, suggesting they're not all quite up to the standard of celebrities such as Kim Kardashian.

The information comes from a study by Carphone Warehouse which shows that the now selfie-obsessed British public take 5.25 billion of them every year.

More than half of British adults admit to touching up their hair and make-up before pressing the button on the camera.

And a third even admit to digitally editing selfies before posting them.

Surprisingly, it's the 25-34 age group which take the most selfies - rather than a younger teenagers, who generally posts 10 a month.

But the trend is spreading to the older generation too, with a fifth of over 55s posting selfies and one in ten taking more than six a month.

Using biometric data allows people to avoid these pitfalls.

Some security experts have welcomed the shift to biometrics for online payments, but others have warned that they may still be vulnerable to determined criminals.

Mark James, a security specialist at online security firm ESET, said: 'Face and retina recognition has long been used in sci-fi films to confirm identity and is seen to be the next step in keeping the average public safe when purchasing in store and online.

'In addition to this, if it encourages users to think more about their security and forces them to better protect their identities then that has to be a good thing in my opinion.'

Robert Page, lead penetration tester at Redscan, added: 'Mastercard's implementation of facial recognition requiring a user to blink appears to be a novel solution to prevent others from taking a picture of a user. The effectiveness of its implementation is yet to stand the test of time however.'

But Robert Capps, vice president of business development at NuData Security, warned:

'Fingerprint and retinal scans seem impressive in movies, but fall far short of true authentication in the real-world – especially in non-face-to-face interactions.

'Just like passwords, high resolution copies of fingerprints can be stolen, copied and stored.'