SmartMetric intros biometrics for NFC cards
SmartMetric Inc. has announced the successful incorporation of near field communication technology into its fingerprint-activated biometric chip card. The chip remains inactive until the cardholder touches the fingerprint sensor on the card, making the SmartMetric solution "safer" than other NFC technologies on the market, the company said in a press release.
"All other NFC technologies are inherently unsafe in that the device is always on, providing hackers the ability to capture the NFC information even while the NFC product is not being used," said SmartMetric president and CEO Chaya Hendrick. Smartphones are a good example of unsafe NFC systems, because a smartphone is always network connected, even when the phone is off, leaving it open to hacker attack.
Hendrick said that even if a smartphone-maker added a fingerprint sensor to the device, it would not overcome the built-in weakness constant network connection. The safest platform and system for protection against hacker attack is a device that is only turned on at the very point of the consumer actually initiating a transaction — any other system is "highly vulnerable and unsafe," the company said.
SmartMetric said that years of R & D have resulted in a miniaturized fingerprint biometric reader that fits into a credit card-sized product. This makes it the only fingerprint activated card that can be used with ATMs and point-of-sale devices, the company claimed. The SmartMetric announcement did not mention what next steps it had planned for the advancement of the technology in the financial services market.
SmartMetric was most recently in the news due to its patent infringement lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard. The company has said that the card brands' use of EMV or chip cards in the United States is in direct violation of its issued patent. However, a U.S. appellate court found that contactless chip cards were not covered by the patent, then sent the case back to the lower court to determine whether contact cards are covered by the patent. That case is scheduled to go forward this August.
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