The increasing activities of fraudsters who through sending Short Message Service and emails to unsuspecting members of the public requesting them to disclose their Automated Teller Machine (ATM) debit card Personal Identification Number on the pretence that they have won in an unknown promo, has raised concerns on effective way to curb the menace.
To this end, that Central Bank of Nigeria recently directed operators in the card business to upgrade their technology to Europe Mastercard Visa (EMV) technology, a Chip and Pin card believed to have more security features than the current magnetic stripe that is widely used.
Although EMV cards have been proven to assist considerably to curbing identity theft at ATM it has not offered a 100 percent solution to the problem. In Europe, where the technology is fully in use there are still increase in identity theft at ATMs, which a long away to show that it does not offer a complete solution to the menace.
Against this backdrop, stakeholders in the industry are seeking for adoption of a technology that will offer near complete solution to identity theft at ATM. They are canvassing for Biometric technology.
Biometrics is the automated recognition of people via distinctive anatomical and behavioral traits has the potential to overcome many of those problems associated with identity theft, experts say.
Compared with a physical token such as a bank card or with the knowledge of a secret such as a PIN, biometric traits are profoundly more difficult to forge, copy, share, misplace or guess. Indeed, they offer the only way of determining whether a person has been issued multiple official documents, such as a driver’s license or passport, under different names. Yet they are quite easy to use as proof of identity.
For these reasons, biometric systems have been gaining popularity in recent years. Laptops and mobile phones that can recognize a fingerprint, for instance, are now commercially available.
According to Dr. O. Osuagwu of department of Computer Science Benue State University, in some countries biometric security is employed to safeguard items such as ATM cards and passports, to determine whether a person can rightfully enter a building or to ensure that someone is entitled to welfare payments. "These systems are far from perfect. But with inexpensive sensors and powerful microprocessors now available, biometric technology is certain to become more pervasive," he said.
Vascular recognition he said already has won wide acceptance in banking. More than Japanese banks and credit unions have made hundreds of ATMs featuring vascular sensor available for everyday use. In the vascular recognition systems developed by Fujitsu and TechSphere, after inserting a banking card in a cash machine, the user is prompted to hold a hand near an infrared light source. The light source is paired with a charge-couple device similar to the one used in standard digital photography. As the near-infrared light passes through the body tissue, it is reflected by the hemoglobin in the blood. This reflected light picked up by the CCD reveals an image of the blood vessels. Within a second or two, the system filters the digitized image, creates a template that it can compare with the authorized user, and decides whether they match.
Nigeria Communications investigation reveals that some of the major banks in the country are making plans to deploy Biometrics ATMs in the country to address the problem of identity theft at ATM which is fast gaining popularity among Nigerians. This has become necessary in view of impact of the machine in reducing large number of customers at banking halls.