Why your face could be set to replace your bank card

Sara Stewart strolls into a small Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles and orders a torta, a type of sandwich.

To pay she simply looks at her reflection in a small LCD screen attached to the cashier’s counter. Then to add her preferred amount of tip she flashes a quick peace sign at the monitor.

The entire process takes less than five seconds, and is entirely contactless. Moreover, Ms Stewart doesn’t need to carry her mobile phone or bank card with her, or show any form of identification, or even enter a pin number.

Welcome to the futuristic world of facial recognition payment. It might sound like something from a science fiction movie, but this kind of transaction is already happening millions of times a day across China’s major cities.

With the technology now being introduced in the US, and other countries such as Denmark and Nigeria, are we all going to be using it within a few years’ time? And, are there data security and privacy issues that we should worry about?

Ms Stewart, an 18-year-old university student, says she has no such concerns. « I feel like technology is moving so fast that people don’t even think twice about using something like this.