As the financial services community grows increasingly interested in biometric technologies, the head of South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), the sector’s national watchdog, is urging business leaders to be mindful of security issues, reports Yonhap News Agency.
Speaking at a conference hosted by the Korea Institute of Finance, FSS Governor Zhin Woong-seob emphasized the need for “[r]esponsible innovation” in FinTech, adding that the community must “deal actively with the possibility of the leak of biometric data.” The warning comes as the country’s banks look to biometric identification and authentication solutions for customers, as in the case of KEB Hana’s introduction of FIDO Certified fingerprint-based login on its mobile app earlier this year.
Biometric authentication is catching fire more broadly in the country, too. Late last year, the national government started working with the country’s telecommunications companies to develop biometric authentication based on FIDO Alliance standards, and earlier this year it announced that it would used biometric facial recognition for access control at government buildings after a scandalous trespassing incident.
Where the FIDO standards are concerned, the FSS Governor should be able to rest easy. Because FIDO requires biometric data to be stored on users’ devices, there is no risk that companies adhering to its standards could suffer a hack compromising that data—they don’t have it, after all. But organizations not adhering to such protocols will want to heed the call for vigilance against digital attacks, and Zhin added that financial services managers should also make efforts to secure against the possibility of hacks into AI assistant bots designed to offer investment advice.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
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September 2, 2016 – by Alex Perala
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