Originally published December 8 2005
Chicago grocery chain allows payment with the touch of a finger
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The biometric payment technology allows customers to "wobble" their finger on a scanner that is linked to their bank account. Some claim this is a safer method of payment, while others fear digital scan theft.
Michelle Saviano spent an hour shopping for groceries Thursday at the Cub Foods in Plainfield with her husband and the youngest of her three children in tow.
But it took Saviano only a few seconds to pay for her groceries, and she did it with the touch of a finger -- no wallet needed.
"Just wobble your finger back and forth," the clerk told Saviano, 34, as she centered her right index finger on a small scanner in the checkout lane.
Paying with a finger scan linked to your bank account is the newest thing in grocery shopping, touted as a more convenient and secure way to pay that some say is poised to become as ubiquitous as automated teller machines.
Cub Foods is the first grocery chain in the Chicago area to use biometric payment technology.
Rollout of the system began in mid-October and is complete in all but one of the 24 Chicago area Cub Foods stores.
The technology works by creating a set of "data points" from the scan that is converted into a numerical equation, encrypted and securely stored.
The data can't be reconfigured back into a fingerprint, said Tara Rayder, a spokeswoman for Pay By Touch Solutions, the San Francisco company equipping Cub Foods and other chains nationwide with the scanners.
"A check goes through about eight different hands to be processed, so the exposure to the customer for identity theft is very high," Rayder said.
Critics of these systems, while recognizing the efficiency benefits, have similar worries.
"If you get hold of someone else's digital scan, you really have at that point the ability to commit biometric identity theft," said Pam Dixon, director of the World Privacy Forum, a public interest research group in San Diego.
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