Visa, BioConnect Working to Eliminate Password on Mobile

Visa is working with BioConnect to fully replace PIN and password security on its mobile apps with multimodal biometrics, the company has announced.

The aim is to enable a system that can leverage a number of different modalities, including fingerprint, iris, face, and voice recognition, in various combinations. If one of those modalities isn’t working – for example, if a user’s hands are wet and their fingerprints can’t be scanned – the authentication system will simply default to another biometric that is available. In its statement announcing the effort, Visa explained that while biometric authentication is still popular, the option of using a password remains “a weak link” in the security chain; Visa’s goal is to ultimately eliminate this option.

The announcement comes in the wake of a joint discussion that Visa and BioConnect hosted on post-password security at last month’s Money20/20 expo in Las Vegas. With BioConnect’s platform supporting a range of modalities, Visa has evidently found a strong partner in its project.

To be clear, Visa does acknowledge that “it will take time until we can fully eliminate PINs and passwords”. But with BioConnect’s help the company is evidently working toward an end goal of realizing such a vision.

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November 11, 2016 – by Alex Perala