Mastercard will launch its Identity Check mobile app in Australia this year allowing users to verify online purchases with a selfie.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported the app, which launched in twelve European markets in October last year, will become available sometime in 2017.
Rather than requiring users verify their identity with a password outside of the website or mobile app of retailers, Mastercard’s Identity Check allows a fingerprint or selfie to be used instead.
“We are relentlessly focused on making the online payment experience near frictionless, without making any compromises on safety and security,” Ajay Bhalla, Mastercard’s president of Enterprise Risk & Security, said in October last year.
The company assures users that the technology is a completely optional opt-in service.
With the potential to simply print off a photo to bypass authentication, Mastercard also required that users blink to complete the verification.
Mastercard will offer the technology to Australian banks, allowing them to integrate fingerprint and selfie verification features into their own apps.
