Do you buy a lot of your books through Amazon? Whether as a Kindle eBook, a physical copy or an Audio book Amazon is without doubt the world’s leading bookseller. In fact currently, Amazon accounts for 67% of all eBook sales and an astonishing 64% of all physical book sales. so it is only logical that they take their customers’ financial security extremely seriously.
Do you have an account with them? Do you have a debit card or bank details linked to your account? Have you enabled One Click Purchasing for convenience? I have and I’ve never really considered the security of those details as they are only kept on my Kindle but what if it was stolen? What if someone spent all my money on trashy literature?
Yes I know I’m making light of a potentially awful situation but we don’t really think about the ease with which our details could be stolen from our Amazon accounts, especially when on our Kindles do we? It’s a good job Amazon does.
We are all aware of Apple’s biometric recognition systems whereby a thumbprint is used to verify a user’s identity but Amazon have just patented the Selfie Pay system.
Stating that Passwords are no longer secure and with today’s small screens are also not user friendly, they say that giving a customer the option of using their own face as security is offering them something that cannot be stolen or replicated.
Amazon’s Selfie Pay differs from current Facial Recognition software which can easily be bypassed by holding a photograph of the account holder’s face up to the camera; instead of a single image they ask for two photographs.
“In order for users to pay for items using this method, they would need to take a selfie to confirm their identity, and then take another photo that confirms “the person contained in the first image corresponds to a physical being in proximity of the computing device”.
This could include people smiling, blinking, or tilting their head, the application said.”
The application was filed in October of 2015 but has only recently been published.
Jurgis Bielinis and the Day of the Book Smugglers
Word of the Day – Nonpareil
10 Hot New Releases for May 2022
Is the ‘Great Omar’ the Unluckiest Book in the World?