American online retailer Amazon seeks to obtain a patent for ‘pay-by-selfie’, which allows customers to pay for online orders with a smartphone selfie. One of Amazon’s other patents is a one-click purchase.
Safer than passwords
Amazon already owns a patent for devices to identify a user through a picture or video, but this new patent would expand that into the payment service. The company argues this would make payments much safer because plenty of consumers keep their password on their smartphone, computer or tablet, which may cause havoc when a malicious person obtains that device. A pay-by-selfie technology would remedy that situation.
To avoid photograph abuse, the patent claims the user can be asked to perform certain acts, like smiling, winking or turning their head.
