Amazon is trying to make online shopping easier and safer.
The giant tech company has recently filed a patent application for a technology that will soon allow its customers to pay by taking a selfie, replacing the traditional way of typing a password.
The patent should be pretty simple. As soon as the user is ready to buy a particular item, the Amazon app will ask you to take a photo or video of yourself. The app will then employ the special facial recognition technology to make certain that it's really you who are making the purchase and not an imposter.
"The process identifies the user and verifies that the user requesting the transaction is a living human being," says the abstract of Amazon's patent application. "The user is identified using image information which is processed utilizing facial recognition."
Amazon adds that the process will prompt consumers to carry out particular actions, gestures or motions to confirm the transaction, for example, to blink, tilt their head or smile. "[This] causes the transaction to be performed after verifying performance of the action by the identified user," it says.
It cannot be denied that typing your password, especially on a small screen, can be a bit difficult. This situation triggers quite a few consumers to just save their passwords into their device. However, doing so could be risky, for instance, when anyone else gets access to your device without consent. This particular scenario makes the new pay-by-selfie option of Amazon advantageous.
