Biometric Payment Systems

I will stop shopping altogether before I scan my fingerprint at a checkout counter.

I will drop out of society and start a commune with a barter economy.

The sad thing is, that might be my only option soon, as this technology spreads across the country.

The Washington Post reports:

Lowe's Food Stores Inc. will test BioPay's system at four of its 110 supermarkets. Next spring, it plans to install the technology at the rest of its stores, most of which are in North Carolina. More than 80 Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. grocery stores in South Carolina and Georgia already have biometric payment systems made by Pay by Touch, a San Francisco company.

The story includes the concerns of civil libertarians.

Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based privacy rights group, is concerned about that trend. He worries that the technology could be compromised, exposing huge databanks of personal information. Systems can always break, he says, either because of malicious or accidental causes, but the information stored by biometric companies is in some ways far more valuable than that held by credit card firms.

"You can always get a new Social Security number, but you certainly can't get a new thumbprint. . . . If things mess up, I could be hurt much more badly by a mistake," Lee said. And week after week, headlines scream of data breaches putting thousands of individuals at greater risk of identity theft, a crime that can ruin personal credit and take months or years to clear up.

If congress can take a break from confirming right-wing nutcases to the federal bench, they might spend a few moments trying to craft some legal standards for the application of biometric technology. Just because it is possible to do something, doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.