The Demise of Pay-by-Touch - find BIOMETRICS

Pay-by-Touch's demise represents a "business" failure not a "biometric" failure. The company offered an innovative retail payment processing solution based on the unique capabilities of biometrics. There is no indication that the biometric component of the solution is to blame for the failure of the effective deployment of the solution, nor the company itself

Far to often, technology is considered the culprit of a failed business enterprise. Pay-by-Touch was a poorly managed company led by an executive team with questionable capabilities and ethics. By all accounts, the biometrics are not to blame. Contrary to what many naysayers predicted, consumer uptake of the Pay-by-Touch biometric payment system was not met with widespread protest or alarm. Quite the opposite was true. Many consumers happily signed up for the service as it offered a convenient, alternative method to purchase groceries.

Pay-by-Touch broke new ground by offering a service-based transaction model for biometrics. It is not clear that this model, any more than the enabling biometric technology, was responsible for the failure of the company. In fact, this service-based, transaction enabling approach will likely become mainstream over the next ten years (See Acuity's "The Future of Biometrics" report).

Pay-by-Touch may have had unrealistic goals, squandered investor cash, mismanaged operations, had an untenable revenue model, completed unwise acquisitions, as well as a host of other sins. However, they did attract over 3 million consumers and provide a service that worked.

There are far too many examples of biometric deployments gone awry where prognosticators, pundits, and protesters proclaim the "failure of biometrics". Time and time again, it is the solution or business model that fails; not the technology.

Biometrics, like any other technology, has inherent limitations. For the most part, these are well known and have to do with the nature of the technology. Biometrics measure human beings -- imperfect, inconsistent, unpredictable human beings. There never has been and there never will be a 100% accurate biometric. Then again, this is true of all technology. It is simply not possible to be 100% accurate measuring anything, yet everyday we rely on a host of "imperfect" technologies that enable us to operate machinery, run complex computer systems, test DNA, and send human beings into space. The technologies all perform within known limitations and constraints that we have mastered in a way that allows us to confidently perform tasks from the mundane to the life threatening with acceptably levels of uncertainty. Why hold biometrics to a higher standard?

To be fair, the biometrics industry bears some of the blame. The legacy of over-promising and under-delivering of biometrics technology is undeniable. Overreaching performance claims need to be legitimately challenged. Acceptable operating failure constraints need to be understood and managed, especially when the assertion or denial of specific rights, privileges, and civil liberties are at stake. However, throwing the proverbial "baby out with the bathwater" is an overreaction. It will not lead to a constructive process of evaluating the true and unique capabilities of biometrics and leveraging them, as and where appropriate, to enable convenient, secure transactions or a host of other applications where who we are matters.

©Copyright 2008 Acuity Market Intelligence, LLC.

The Demise of Pay-by-Touch - find BIOMETRICS