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15th Mar 2016

Soon You Might Be Able To Pay For Online Purchases With A Simple Selfie

The future is now.

Ellen Tannam

We already have it pretty easy when shopping online, with brands and stores making it easy-peasy for us to make purchases over the internet.

This move by Amazon, is some next level futuristic stuff.

According to Re/Code, the e-commerce behemoth has filed a patent for a process to permit customers to make a purchase by taking a photo or video of themselves rather than using a password.

giphy (7)

(via Giphy)

Amazon are interested in this because they don’t want customers to store the passwords on their phones as this creates a huge security risk, whereas a selfie or a video wouldn’t require any memorisation and wouldn’t put the user’s data in danger.

“Under the scenario in the patent application, a phone or computer “can prompt the user to perform certain actions, motions, or gestures, such as to smile, blink, or tilt his or her head.”

“This would be done to prove that the shopper is who he or she says, rather than an imposter simply holding up a photo of the shopper.”

This is going to make shopping scarily simple.

Lead Image via The Huffington Post