(Prelude to a series on behavioral biometrics)
Have you ever tried to create a signature on a touch screen or touch pad? You must have… With or without a stylus this is a cumbersome experience in my humble opinion. If I sign-off a package on the electronic pad of the courier for instance it does not even remotely resemble my signature. If I try to put a signature with my finger with the ‘paper’ app at my iPad it feels awkward to say the least and results in a strange scribble all the same. If I use my trackpad to create a signature to include in a pdf it looks like a neanderthal painting but not my signature.
At least it does not come anything close to the example signature used by Sign2Pay in their marketing material which I highly doubt was created on a touchpad. For me a written signature is clearly linked to “pen and paper”, not the digital realm.
Still it is the signature – being “written” on a touchscreen – Sign2Pay uses to authenticate payments. It is not the graphic representation itself but the typical movements (e.g. direction, speed, curves) you make creating the signature. These movements are typical for you and are very hard to replicate by somebody/something else. The claim is that you do not need anything else then your signature, just your finger to sign. We have come full circle with a technical twist, you do not even need a pen (just your smartphone.…)
I really like this “thinking out of the box” concept as it re-uses something fully embedded – literally – in our bodies and society for ages from a totally different technological angle. A case of lateral thinking avant la lettre, kudos for that!
As such, this a fine example of “behavioral biometrics”. It is not something you HAVE in combination of something you KNOW – as is the basis of most authentication methodes in mainstream payments -, but something you DO (and only YOU can DO).
Personally I doubt whether Sign2Pay’s use case (authentication for payments) will see widespread adoption for many reasons though:
- The boarding process needs several steps as well as multiple iterations to establish the typical movements of the signature. Every active step asked by the user to activate a certain facility is increasing the hurdle to use it.
- Even though touchscreens are in everybody’s pocket Sign2Pay is limited to touchscreens. Will people like authentication methods differing per channel?
- Will people trust their own signatures if the experience to create them on a touchscreen is cumbersome (and most will not understand that it is not the graphic signatures but the movements which are used!)
- Competition is huge and often already well established,
- Biometric fingerprint sensors are almost ubiquitous by now, with Apple Pay paving the way, this is even more seamless for users.
- How will payment providers look at the boarding process? Safe enough to use it for payments authentication?
- How to get on the list of payment options merchants offer their clients? Will PSP’s invest in this new method without it having at least some traction?
- Is the use of a pen and paper approach in the digital realm counter intuitive for the average user? Is this, by being so obvious, to far out?
But maybe I am biased? Maybe this technological concept could be helpful to increase security with the introduction of EMV in the USA as they often keep on using signatures instead of PIN?
PS More on behavioral biometrics in one of my next posts.
Jan Willem
(NB Pitch Sign2Pay seen at ABNAMRO Startup Friday 12-12-2014)