Biometrics Are Coming, Along With Serious Security Concerns

"Just because someone might be able to use their ear at checkout doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to happen anytime soon, though. “Biometrics are tricky,” Woodrow Hartzog, an Associate Professor of Law at Samford University told WIRED. “They can be great because they are really secure. It’s hard to fake someone’s ear, eye, gait, or other things that make an individual uniquely identifiable. But if a biometric is compromised, you’re done. You can’t get another ear.”

“The law is written in such a way that that these agreements are routinely considered valid and that they are the way for companies to get permission to collect, use, and share your personal information,” says Hartzog.

“There’s a question as to how viscerally people will respond to biometrics. The fingerprint reader seems to have caught on pretty well, because it was really useful and easy,” says Hartzog. “When people feel creeped out they may be less gung-ho to adopt some kind of biometric.”"