Tencent wants you to pay with your palm. What could go wrong?

Synthetic models can be used to create fake palm-print data, which can be compared to creases in palms. According to a paper submitted to the European Conference on Computer Vision, the data can be used to improve recognition. The accuracy will be close to 100% once we have generated 200,000 to 300,000 images. He says that it is a clear improvement. The accuracy of palm-print recognition was about 98% before.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong has a researcher who focuses on real world data. One of the first academics in the world to research palm-print recognition, started in the late 1990s, has developed a device that scans palm prints and has collected information from more than 10,000 people. The team plans to publish a paper on the data soon.

The benefits of identifying in fingerprints, irises, and faces are combined in palm-print recognition. The accuracy of palm-print recognition is 10 times higher than that of fingerprints or faces, according to research done by his team.

The shaky ground for adopting biometric-based payments

There is no need to bring a wallet, credit card, or cellphone to pay with palm-print recognition. Practical and ethical challenges to that promise exist.

The system works well and is easy to use. Martin Chorzempa is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and author of a new book.

The idea of using facial recognition to pay for things has failed to become very popular because of this. According to a survey of 58,000 Chinese mobile payment users, almost all of them choose to pay for their purchases with a barcode. The use of fingerprints in payment is not acceptable.

Cahn argues that the idea that the recognition of fingerprints is convenient for consumers is a myth. Amazon did a great job of replacing traditional cashiers with self checkouts. It is not for the convenience of the customers. He says that this is for the convenience of the store that wants to fire employees.

Privacy invasion and data security are the two biggest barriers to adoption. People around the world are becoming more aware of the risks of giving out their fingerprints to companies and governments, no matter what benefits are promised.