Credit Cards Go RFID

[Guest guest]

FYI - Anna

 

Credit cards tap into radio tags

 

By Alfred Hermida

BBC News Online technology editor

 

Forget about using a pen to sign a credit card slip, or even tapping in a

secret number. In the future, you could authorise payments by simply moving

your finger over your flexible friend.

 

A leading professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has

suggested using radio tags in credit cards as a kind of virtual signature.

 

Professor Ted Selker said the way someone moved their finger over the card

would alter the radio transmission, producing a signal unique to that

person.

 

" I could have some gesture and that would be my signature, " he said, " it

would be like a personal handshake. "

 

The idea of putting radio tags in credit cards is not as far-fetched as it

sounds. Mastercard has been experimenting with the technology, known as

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

 

US trials

 

RFID tags are tiny transponders that send out radio signals and some experts

predict they will become commonplace over the next decade or so.

 

The use of the technology in credit cards has been tested by Mastercard.

Last year it ran a nine-month pilot in the US, involving some 15,000

consumers.

 

People could pay for goods by waving their cards near special tills, which

would receive the information transmitted by the cards.

 

Prof Selker has suggested taking the technology a step further and using the

properties of radio waves as a security check.

 

" By watching a finger moving around an antenna, we can literally see that

the finger changes the antenna's behaviour, " he told BBC News Online.

 

" I could draw letters and it would tell just by where my finger is how that

is affecting the radio signal, whether or not it was me. "

 

On-off cards

 

He suggested this could be used to make a RFID system that could complement

or replace other ways of authorising a credit card.

 

" Wouldn't it be great if we could get the protection of having a personal

identification number, without having to have a pad to type it into? " asked

Prof Selker, who heads the Context Aware Computing group at the MIT's Media

Labs.

 

" Wouldn't it be nice if something better than my signature would be

transmitted without me having to use an external device? "

 

Civil rights groups have expressed concerns about RFID technology for some

time. They worry it means people could, in theory, be tracked by the tags.

 

" You don't necessarily want a credit card that can be detected when you are

not using it, " said technology expert Bill Thompson. " You want a button that

can turn it off or on. "

 

" Otherwise imagine if you are a thief, you just wonder around with a RFID

detector looking for people with these credit cards. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

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