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Your webcam as a credit card reader?

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So now you are able to use your very own webcam as a credit card reader.

I'm not sure that holding your card in front of your webcam is going to be that much easier than typing in around 20 characters: the number of people who have enough problems getting themselves "in shot" properly would lead me to think that this isn't going to be all plain sailing. I remember as well trying to use my webcam as a barcode reader, as it "would make my life easier" when trying to catalogue my books, music and DVD's - fortunately I have a new webcam now since smashing that one in to tiny pieces.

Ever open to new ideas, I thought I would do a bit more digging behind this announcement. I read that this will be "the most secure form of online payment possible", with declarations of very low fraud and false positives being encountered during trials.

How this will translate in the big bad world I will be very keen to see. In itself, this system might be very secure, but I can't help wondering to myself whether another avenue will have been opened for scammers and fraudsters. How long will it be until we start seeing fake webcam payment mechanisms appearing, where susceptible shoppers willingly handover not just their credit card number, but an entire scan of the front and back?

Then your card really will have been swiped.

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