This STLtoday.com article -- "Fingerprint pay system gets toehold in the
region"

Here is a good candidate for the mark of the beast in the hand.
Fingerprints are unique to each individual, so they provide positive proof
of identity.  Biometric use of eye patterns is also currently being used
and is  positive proof of identity (pattern unique to each individual),
(good candidate for the mark of the beast in the forehead).  Contrast this
uniqueness with DNA, which is not unique to each indivdual and is therefore
not positive proof of identity.

Pray hard!
Fear not!  Occupy.  Look up!

YSIC--
Ghoti
:-)

---

Fingerprint pay system gets toehold in the region
By TAVIA EVANS
Of the Post-Dispatch
 

Below is the link to the story.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/story/8CEF2E670F69D8DC8625705A001149B5?OpenDocument

Here is the story.

Give up your fingerprints and pay for gas.

That's the slogan a Phillips66 ExpressMart in Arnold could well adopt for
its fingerprint-payment system. The franchised station is the first
retailer in the bistate area to use BioPay, a Virginia-based company that
sells fingerprint-reading technology to process retail transactions.

The payment system scans a customer's fingerprint to determine the person's
identity. Once confirmed, it debits the purchase amount from the person's
checking account.

It's a time saver, said Kal Abhari, manager of the gas station. And on his
busy Jefferson County thoroughfare with several other stations and
mini-marts, Abhari believes the new system could be the difference between
quick service at his business and customers going elsewhere.

"It cuts the time per customer to 20 or 30 seconds; we don't need a
(drivers) license to check their ID or anything," when customers write
checks, said Abhari. "We just scan their finger, print a receipt. There's
nothing to sign, and they leave the store."

Abhari has signed on 200 customers for BioPay so far.

Here's how it works: To register, customers show a valid drivers license
and a voided check for the cashier to scan. Then they place their right and
left index fingers into a scanner and select a PIN, usually their 10-digit
phone number.

BioPay uses biometric technology to plot small points on the scanned
fingerprint image, based on the tiny swirls and creases in the finger.
Those points become numbers and are used with a mathematics algorithm to
generate up to 250 characters. Those characters are later used to identify
a template of the image.

Once someone is identified, the system is allowed to debit the person's
account.

The one-time registration allows customers to pay with their fingertips at
any location that uses BioPay, even in another state.

Another company, Pay-By-Touch, based in San Francisco, also sells
fingerprint-reading technology to merchants.

Tim Robinson, president of BioPay, said 15 million transactions have been
processed since the company's launch in 1999.

"What consumers are looking for is a convenient and secure way to make
purchases," he said. "What BioPay offers is the ability to go to the store
for groceries or buy a tank of gas and, if you don't have your wallet or
purse . . . , you can still make your purchases."

But privacy advocates say it's another example of too much personal
information in the hands of a second party.

"If secure financial institutions can't keep hackers out, what will happen
when our biometric information gets stolen?" asked Pam Dixon, executive
director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit public interest research
group based in San Diego. "Before we give our prints to businesses, we need
to be very sure about their privacy policy and how they secure their
databases. Social Security numbers can be replaced but not fingerprints."

BioPay said it doesn't store a picture of the fingerprints, only the
numbers they generate. The information is stored on the company's servers
across the country.

For retailers, faster service and cheaper transactions are the main draws
to the technology. Merchants pay a flat fee for the fingerprint
transactions; the average is 20 cents. That's usually cheaper than what the
major credit card companies charge, retailers say. Abhari pays a 10-cent
flat fee for a credit or debit card transaction, and up to 2.5 percent of
the purchase amount. Abhari estimated he pays out about $3,000 a month in
credit card fees alone.

In other states, BioPay has sold its technology to grocers, fast-food
restaurants and even a chiropractic office.

Charlotte-based Dilworth Coffee Roasters offers BioPay's fingerprint
payment system along with its free wireless Internet service in six of its
nine licensed coffeehouses.

"It's a secure transaction for our employees, no (customer) information
changes hands, and there's the convenience of not carrying a wallet or ID,"
said Sandy May, general manager.

The BioPay system, which can cost merchants up to $2,000, includes a check
imager, a sensor to scan the fingers and a terminal.

But merchants say the investment is worth the convenience and time saved.

May said he has already signed on 200 users in the two months he has had
the equipment in his coffeehouses.