'Pay with smile’ facial recognition tech trialled in London cafes

Payment by facial recognition, what could possibly go wrong ?

I walk past at the wrong time and pay for someone else's coffee ? Wrong person gets charged through an ID mistake ?

Revolut said customers will not be enrolled automatically and can withdraw their consent at any time.

...initially.

I guess if you know you have an evil twin you can just opt-out.

Alex Codina, general manager of merchant payments at Revolut Business, said: “By combining high-performance processing with facial recognition technology, we’re replacing outdated, fragmented tills with a hyper-efficient checkout experience designed to solve consumer and merchant pain points.”

Why do people find it painful to pay with cash or tap a card or enter a pin or wave their phone? Why are there so many different payment methods? You still have to tap on the option to use this method anyway, it's not a simple glance. What is the point?

Biometrics should only be used as a second form of authentication in addition to either something you know (pin) or something you have (card with chip) - if it's used at all.

Because if your pin is compromised... You can set a new pin and invalidate the old.

If your card is compromised... You can get a new card and invalidate the old.

If your face is compromised.... You're fucked.

I remember when contactless was coming in there was an odd panic that people had when people thought it was too easy. There was (and still is) a worry that someone who finds your card will then use it to go and buy £20 of stuff. But the banks seem happy with the risk. I think you can turn the contactless off at the banks end if you are worried but then you are onto chip and pin. This seems at a whole new level and I wonder what the safe gards are. Like can your doppelganger go and rack up a bill. How do you confirm and dispute payments. What if your just standing in the que behind the person at the till will it pick you up.

The fact that they just got phished into sharing people’s personal data with “law enforcement” should really strike confidence in customers. Excellent timing to announce collecting even more personal information which you can be sure they are happy to send to hackers posing as fake agencies. All in the name of public protection don’t worry!!