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If you thought India's decision to ban 86% of its cash was ambitious, wait until you hear what it may do next.
The head of a government-run policy institute said on Thursday that the country could completely eliminate the need for credit cards, debit cards and ATMs in the next three years by switching to biometric payments. Amitabh Kant said that even electronic payment methods may be "totally redundant" by 2020. Instead, all Indians will need for transactions is their thumb or eye.
"Each one of us in India will be a walking ATM," Kant said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. That would represent "the biggest technological leapfrogging ever in the history of mankind," he added.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, head of the State Bank of India, agreed that such a dramatic shift was possible.
"This is something that's eminently doable," she said, pointing out that nearly 1.1 billion of India's 1.3 billion people have already registered their biometric data under the government's unique identification program.
Source: CNN
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @03:13AM
The biggest problem with biometrics is also their biggest benefit - they're unique.
Law enforcement has already replicated fingerprints to unlock media and the eye may be more challenging, but it's -as usual- not a question of if, but when. If a password is compromised it can simply be changed. When your fingerprints, or retinal image, or whatever is compromised then what? Imagine somebody told you to come up with one really really good password and then use it everywhere and on every single device you have. If you're even a little bit tech savvy you'd probably look at them a bit screwy - yet that is biometrics in a nutshell.
(Score: 1) by Demena on Monday January 30 2017, @06:19AM
I asked this of a policeman. He suggested that 'marking' your prints with a Stanley knife would make them unique again. I hope he was drunk.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Monday January 30 2017, @03:08PM
You can alter your finger prints as I accidentally found out when I was younger. I had torched off a stuck nut and wasn't paying attention and toughed the still red hot bolt with one of my fingers. On that finger I now have a nice cross hatch pattern made from my original prints and the thread pattern of the red hot bold.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 1) by Demena on Monday January 30 2017, @10:11PM
I do not think you understood me. Either that or you are being facetious. I have had a knife scar on my finger tip for more than half a century. Nothing abnormal in having mutilated fingerprints.