Love Selfies? Now They Can Keep Your Credit Card Safe
MasterCard is appealing to America’s obsession with selfies in an effort to reduce credit card identity theft.
The credit card company is launching a new program that will allow consumers to approve online purchases with a facial scan. At the checkout page, you’ll be asked to take a picture of yourself using your phone instead of entering a password.
Currently, customers can stop hackers from using their credit card on the Web by setting up a “SecureCode,” which requires a password when shopping online. The password system was used in 3 billion transactions last year.
This fall MasterCard will launch a small pilot program involving 500 customers using fingerprints and facial scans. If the test is a success, the company plans on rolling it out publicly afterward. The company is also looking ahead to one day apply voice recognition technology.
To use the new selfie system, customers need to download the MasterCard phone app. Once you pay for something, a pop-up will appear asking for your authorization with either a fingerprint or facial recognition. Using facial recognition, customers stare at the phone, blink once — and bam! All done. The blink is a security measure so thieves can’t just hold up a photo of you. A fingerprint only requires a touch.
Passwords are easily forgotten, stolen or cracked, so the new system is a way to prove your identity using biometrics. Critics of the new system are uncomfortable that the photo or fingerprint a customer puts into his or her phone will transmit to the company’s computer servers. Cybersecurity experts worry the transfer of such information across devices is too big of a privacy risk.
MasterCard wasn’t the first company to develop a facial recognition app — Chinese shopping brand Alibaba demonstrated one in March, but had to postpone the technology’s launch because of security risks found by China’s central bank and police ministry.
Increasing Number of Americans Delay Medical Care Due to Cost: Gallup
From Gallup: “A record 25% of Americans say they or a family member put off treatment for a serious medical condition in the past year because of the cost, up from 19% a year ago and the highest in Gallup's trend. Another 8% said they or a family member put off treatment for a less serious condition, bringing the total percentage of households delaying care due to costs to 33%, tying the high from 2014.”
Number of the Day: $213 Million
That’s how much the private debt collection program at the IRS collected in the 2019 fiscal year. In the black for the second year in a row, the program cleared nearly $148 million after commissions and administrative costs.
The controversial program, which empowers private firms to go after delinquent taxpayers, began in 2004 and ran for five years before the IRS ended it following a review. It was restarted in 2015 and ran at a loss for the next two years.
Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who played a central role in establishing the program, said Monday that the net proceeds are currently being used to hire 200 special compliance personnel at the IRS.
US Deficit Up 12% to $342 Billion for First Two Months of Fiscal 2020: CBO
The federal budget deficit for October and November was $342 billion, up $36 billion or 12% from the same period last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated on Monday. Revenues were up 3% while outlays rose by 6%, CBO said.
Hospitals Sue to Protect Secret Prices
As expected, groups representing hospitals sued the Trump administration Wednesday to stop a new regulation would require them to make public the prices for services they negotiate with insurers. Claiming the rule “is unlawful, several times over,” the industry groups, which include the American Hospital Association, say the rule violates their First Amendment rights, among other issues.
"The burden of compliance with the rule is enormous, and way out of line with any projected benefits associated with the rule," the suit says. In response, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said that hospitals “should be ashamed that they aren’t willing to provide American patients the cost of a service before they purchase it.”
See the lawsuit here, or read more at The New York Times.
A Decline in Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment
Between December 2017 and July 2019, enrollment in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) fell by 1.9 million, or 2.6%. The Kaiser Family Foundation provided an analysis of that drop Monday, saying that while some of it was likely caused by enrollees finding jobs that offer private insurance, a significant portion is related to enrollees losing health insurance of any kind. “Experiences in some states suggest that some eligible people may be losing coverage due to barriers maintaining coverage associated with renewal processes and periodic eligibility checks,” Kaiser said.
