THERE’S MORE TO IT THAN THAT
There’s more to it than that. Isn’t that so often the case? One place this is definitely true is biometric authentication. Passwords will become an increasingly weak form of authentication, necessitating a shift to biometric methods.
Some people think that biometric authentication means simply detecting an image of your face or fingerprint to satisfy authentication demands. For example, USAA was the first US financial company to begin using facial and voice recognition for account login purposes earlier this year. As impressive as that is in its own right, some remain skeptical about how difficult those kinds of system would be to hack. However, there’s more to it than that . . . much more, as Patricia Mertzesswein explains (“Logging In?: Say Cheese” Kiplinger’s Personal Finance , May 2015, p. 14):
“ The technology [biometric authentication] doesn’t actually capture an image of your face or fingerprint, or literally record your voice. Rather, it measures hundreds of distinct characteristics and runs those values through a proprietary algorithm to create a template. Then, when you log on to a device, or use it to log in to an account, your current biometric data will be compared with your template to authenticate you. ”
With that kind of technological complexity, I can see how biometric authentication could render the password obsolete. Additionally, I see one more positive—you don’t have to worry about forgetting who you are.
