I think the UK is not going anywhere near far enough and the US should take action too.
I believe that a personal identification number should be tatooed on our forearms at birth and a tracking chip implanted also. One that can be monitored via something like the cellphone system so that we are never out of contact with the authorities. Nothing is too good for our security! I think a little remote controlled bomb in our heads would be good also so that if someone is committing a crime that might endanger someone else or a cat or something, the authorities could stop them permanently without risk to themselves or any bystanders or trees or what not. There is never any reason why our government officials should not be able to locate any of us at any time they choose and kill us if we are being bad. Id cards are a waste of time and can get lost and require lots of extra expense. We have RFID chips and mini-explosive devices so the only sensible thing is to get right to the point.
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Closer to cashless: On-the-go purchases now just a tap away
By Renee McGaw
March 31, 2006
The Denver Business Journal (also appeared on Charlotte Business Journal, San Antonio Business Journal)
http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2006/04/03/focus7.html
Time is money, particularly at the checkout counter.
That's why contactless payment cards will be increasingly visible in Colorado this year and beyond, backers say. The cards, which are equipped with a radio frequency chip, need only be waved about 2 inches from a reader to process transactions under $25 -- no swiping or signature is required.
Contactless cards trim average transaction times by about 12-18 seconds compared with cash, according to MasterCard. And because they don't need a magnetic strip to work, they can be made in any shape or size -- as a key fob, for instance, or attached to a pager or mobile phone.
Chase Bank rolled out the first contactless credit cards, called "blink" cards, in Colorado last June, issuing about 500,000 of the cards to cardholders statewide. KeyBank followed in September, when it began replacing existing Colorado cardholders' debit cards with MasterCard Paypass debit cards.
KeyBank said in February that it was about halfway through a nationwide rollout of about 2 million cards.
"What we're finding is that as our customers receive it, they like the concept of fast and convenient at the checkout," said Carl Stauffeneger, senior vice president of payment products at Cleveland-based KeyBank. "For smaller transactions, where [customers] would spend cash more frequently, now they don't have to carry that cash or worry about the time it takes to break a $10 or a $20."
It also allows card issuers to capture more under-$5 transactions, for which most people tend to pull out cash instead of credit cards. Many market watchers also assume that the "tap-and-go" cards will encourage consumers to make more frequent small purchases, although data so far is sketchy.
At the moment, 73 merchants accept contactless credit cards in Denver, according to the MasterCard Web site. These include 7-Eleven, McDonald's, Arby's, Walgreens and Ritz Camera stores, as well as AMC Theaters and Regal Entertainment Group theaters.
The more places that consumers can use the cards, the more popular they will be, so getting more merchants onboard is crucial.
"We expect to see a lot more merchant pickup in 2006 and beyond," said T.J. Sharkey, vice president of business development for U.S. acceptance at MasterCard International in New York. He said MasterCard was hoping eventually to reach beyond national chains, to get the card readers into independent and local stores.
About 500,000 MasterCard PayPass cards were distributed in Colorado in 2005, and MasterCard expects to add another 120,000 this year, Sharkey said.
"We're absolutely seeing traction," he said.
Widespread acceptance of the cards has been "sort of a chicken-and-egg situation," said Rahul Gadkari, U.S. field marketing manager in Austin, Texas, for Axalto, an Amsterdam-based company that supplies contactless-payment smart cards to the top three U.S. issuers -- MasterCard Paypass, American Express ExpressPay and Visa Contactless. "Merchants wanted the cards to be in the market, but issuers wanted the readers to be in the market at the merchants. There was sort of a question mark, maybe a year back, about whether this thing was going to work."
Point-of-sale systems have been designed to handle either Visa, MasterCard or American Express-branded cards. All three products are based on ISO/IEC 14443, the international standard for contactless smart chip technology. They can only be read at a distance of 2 to 4 inches from the POS terminal. That makes them different from RFID tags, the "non-smart" chip technology used to identify animals, track goods logistically or replace bar codes at retailers. Those tags have little to no security and can be read anywhere from several inches to several yards away, according to the New Jersey-based Smart Card Alliance.
The POS terminal reads the card for the serial number and a cryptogram, which is a one-time code calculated inside the token. The information is sent to the cardholder's bank, which passes it back to the card issuer. Because the cryptogram includes a transaction counter, if anyone tried to replay the transaction, the false cryptgram could easily be spotted, card companies say.
Since last June, Axalto has supplied nearly 5 million contactless-payment cards in the U.S. market, Gadkari said. "Going from zero cards in the market to close to 5 million cards -- that was a great deal for us and for the market," he said. "You can imagine the buzz that's catching on. Almost every two weeks a new merchant announces its participation in the contactless payment program."
Chase chose Colorado as the second market for its initial rollout in June, a week or so after it introduced the cards in Atlanta.
"In our view, the population [of Colorado] is a higher-tech, more customer-savvy group for us in terms of people who understand payments," said Scott Rau, senior vice president of card services at Chase Bank in Wilmington, Del. "It's a great area for new technology. We also have about a million card members there, we have a big retail bank there, and we had lots of merchants there that were ready."
Questions About Security
Banks say getting customers to accept the cards hasn't been difficult. But consumer watchdog organizations say the cards could be less secure than traditional magnetic strip credit cards.
"On the plus side, it makes customer transactions faster and more convenient; the danger is that it could also make fraudulent use of credit cards speedier and more convenient as well," said Joe Ridout, spokesman for Consumer Action, a San Francisco-based nonprofit advocacy and education organization.
As no signature is required, using stolen cards could be easier. But credit card companies say a "zero liability guarantee" covers contactless cards, just as it does traditional cards -- in other words, the consumer is not liable for unauthorized purchases on a card reported lost or stolen. The current $25 limit per signatureless transaction would also slow thieves down.
"Signatures are pretty widely ignored at the checkout stand anyway," Ridout admitted. "I know of one guy who did this experiment by signing all kinds of names to the credit card slip, including 'call the police' and 'I stole this card.' Then he started doing abstract drawings in the signature line. And nobody ever challenged him."
But other problems could crop up, including overcharges and wider-than-expected broadcast of personal information, he said.
"A consumer would have to be wary that they wouldn't, say, walk by a scanner and inadvertently buy someone else's goods," Ridout said. "With every step that you remove, it's more convenient in saving time, but could also remove some of the safeguards to overcharges or being charged for things that one never intended to buy in the first place."
If contactless payments catch on, it might not be long before you're waving something else in front of an electronic reader -- your cell phone. Chase, Visa USA, Cingular Wireless, Nokia, Philips and ViVOtech are currently involved in a trial at Philips Arena in Atlanta, in which Atlanta Thrashers and Hawks season-ticket holders will use Nokia 3220 mobile phones equipped with contactless payment chips to buy tickets, food, drinks and merchandise within the stadium.
Axalto is engaged in a similar trial with Bouygues Telecom in France, through which Paris Metro commuters will use their cell phone handset as a travel pass.
The technology has advanced rapidly in Asia. Many Japanese cell phone users already use "precharged" money functions on their handsets to make small purchases at convenience stores and vending machines and to pay taxi and train fares. More than 9 million cellphones are equipped with money functions, and about 28,000 Japanese retailers are connected to the system -- more than double that of a year ago, according to a Jan. 24 article on the Web site of The Daily Yomiuri, Japan's largest English-language newspaper.
Meanwhile, Boulder-based company Fastlane will soon roll out a program that would let people pay by swiping the magnetic strip of their driver's license at a POS system, which Fastlane would process using previously provided checking account information.
Fastlane CEO Carl Towner says the payment network, which the company will introduce at the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) trade show in Las Vegas on April 18 prior to its introduction at about 20,000 retailers nationwide, uses existing POS hardware; merchants need only download the software.
"The value proposition to merchants is cost," Towner said. "We're less expensive than the alternative."
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Supermarket shoppers can pay by just barely lifting a finger
By Madhusmita Bora
April 2, 2006
Asbury Park Press
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060402/BUSINESS/604020341/1003
Deanna Tratensek likes grocery shopping. The smooth ride through the aisles, the piling of favorite goodies into her cart and the fun of just being there, however, all end when she reaches the checkout counter.
That's when the war begins with her purse as she struggles to find that debit card or checkbook.
"So many times I have carried the wrong purse or forgotten my checkbook someplace else," Tratensek said. "I would be happy if I don't have to carry a purse or anything,"
Now Tratensek can get away with doing exactly that at the new Sunflower Market in Broad Ripple, Ind., which uses a fingerprint-scanning technology called Pay By Touch.
At the checkout counter, Tratensek can touch a small screen, which identifies the geometry of her fingerprint, activating an automatic withdrawal from her bank account. There's no fumbling with the cash or sweating over the missing debit card.
All you need is the power of touch, and you have your electronic purse.
Store officials say the system is secure and no actual image of the fingerprint is collected.
"We feel we have developed a very fast way of flowing people through the store," said John Strum, director of Sunflower Market, which is owned by Supervalu.
Although new here, the technology has been used in other parts of the country for nearly four years, becoming popular with grocery retailers and other businesses in the last two years, said Michael Garry, technology and logistics editor at the Supermarket News.
Kroger uses the fingerprint technology to clock in its employees. Other grocers such as Piggly Wiggly, Albertsons, Thriftway and Supervalu subsidiaries Cub Foods and Bigg's are using it at checkout aisles in Oregon, Washington, Iowa, New York, the Carolinas and elsewhere. Even small mom-and-pop stores are tuning in to the system.
The National Grocers Association, which represents independent grocery owners, said it doesn't know how many of its members use Pay By Touch.
"But we do know that we have many members who are looking into biometrics or using it," said Christine Cunnick, the association's director of communications.
The Virginia-based trade association recently dedicated an entire day at its convention to talk about the technology and how it works.
"The response has been incredible, and we are adding more locations all the time," said Tara Rayder, senior marketing manager at Pay By Touch, based in San Francisco.
The company, founded in 2002, is the leading supplier of the technology and now holds more than two-dozen patents that cover the use of biometrics for authentication and making payments. Pay By Touch says it plans to expand to more than 10,000 locations coast to coast by the year's end.
What makes the system a hit with retailers is that it cuts down on the number of employees at the cash registers and speeds up the shopping experience, said Ray Burke, E.W. Kelley chair of business administration at Indiana University.