Chinese and US multinational giants Tencent and Visa have teamed up to produce a novel method of identity authentication during the process of payment and picked Singapore as the testbed.
The pilot introduces palm recognition, which combines palm prints – and what reports refer to as “vein recognition.” This is touted as more reliable than facial recognition since that can reportedly be tampered with more easily.
Meanwhile, palm recognition of the kind Tencent and Visa have come up with seems to take into account even some morbid scenarios, in terms of preventing attempts to circumvent the system: namely, in order to carry out authentication, palm recognition “requires the presence of living tissue.”
This is yet another of Singapore’s efforts in the same vein (no pun), which is to use sophisticated technology to identify, track, and mass surveillance people, under a scheme known as Smart Nation, while the pilot was announced during the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF).
Those who choose to participate in this phase of the project will include palm scanners in their payment terminals, while this method is advertised for – wait for it – convenience, since it does not require the use of physical devices.
That may seem like a poor deal since clearly comprehensive biometric data is being surrendered in exchange for saving a few seconds by not having to whip out a card or a phone.
Nevertheless, these biometric payment systems are spreading in Southeast Asia, as other major players, like Visa’s arch-rival Mastercard, already have one in the works (Mastercard is collaborating with Japan’s NEC, and this scheme is based on facial recognition).
Back to all that biometric data that is harvested thanks to Visa’s new payment solution – who’s responsible for handling it, and what happens to it once authentication is done?
Customers in Singapore may or may not be happy to learn that it’s the job of China’s Tencent (via the local subsidiary). Tencent is in charge of the palm recognition infrastructure and promises that Singapore’s data protection (PDPA) rules will apply.
Additionally, the said data will be stored in Singapore, Tencent said.
