The Mark Of The Beast Could Be Here Anytime After The Next 12 Months

Biometric markers could surpass passwords within 12 months. 

That would mean a shift from notoriously weak letter-and-number combinations to stronger, less hackable protection measures like fingerprint authentication. Services such as Apple Pay — which requires users to scan their fingerprint to enable transactions — are already preparing the public for that transition, which could blossom in the next 12 to 24 months, Nelsen said after the event. “It’s moving beyond the password as a way to authenticate yourself and really adopting more of those biometrics,” Nelsen said. 

He pointed to Braintree, the Chicago-based payments processor and software developer acquired by PayPal in 2013, as the type of company that could make the technology needed for this shift more accessible

Mark Nelsen, senior vice president of risk products and business intelligence at Visa, who was in town Thursday to join a panel on keeping customer trust.

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Services such as Apple Pay — which requires users to scan their fingerprint to enable transactions — are already preparing the public for that transition, which could blossom in the next 12 to 24 months, Nelsen said after the event.

“It's moving beyond the password as a way to authenticate yourself and really adopting more of those biometrics,” Nelsen said.

He pointed to Braintree, the Chicago-based payments processor and software developer acquired by PayPal in 2013, as the type of company that could make the technology needed for this shift more accessible.

“They would be one that would be trying to either develop applications that can use that kind of stronger authentication,” Nelsen said.


For example, Braintree could create a program that allows people to log into their accounts with their voice, Nelsen said. The company could then license that out to others who want to offer the same capability.

(Braintree wouldn't discuss specifics about any such plans, but noted: "Technologies like biometrics present exciting opportunities for payments and other industries to improve their user experience. ... Our parent company, PayPal, has worked with Samsung to allow users to login and pay using their fingerprint on their newest Samsung smartphones and tablet devices — the Galaxy S5, Tab S and Note 4.”)

Widespread adoption of biometric authentication for processes that involve personal data or financial transactions will require something some consumers have lost in recent months: trust. Nelsen said as awareness of and education about the superior security of technologies such as fingerprint scanning grows, so will people’s willingness to use them.

Companies will likely continue to offer traditional authentication alongside biometric options to give consumers a choice. But they should at the very least raise their protection standards for the data they hold, Nelsen said.

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