By Jason Geyer
Director of Digital Production
TPN Retail

We all remember that cool scene in Steven Spielberg’s movie Minority Report where Tom Cruise is walking through a mall and all of the ads he sees are customized for him only. Ever since its release in 2002, this futuristic scene has been the gold standard to strive toward for advertisers with an eye on where digital is taking shopper marketing.

And although technology manufacturers have taken baby steps toward this in the past, Panasonic has announced that it is partnering up with Photon Interactive to deliver a much closer representation of what the movie promised:

•     The goal is to combine Photon’s software with Panasonic displays, so that those displays will know more about the customer. That information can be used to deliver targeted offers, as well as check in, make purchases, and more.
•     For example, the company says that at a brick-and-mortar retailer, a customer might look at the digital signage, view personalized offers, bring up directions to where a product is in the store, and scan bar codes with the mobile app to make purchases. Or in a fast food restaurant, the customer could either order from a kiosk or on their phone, then pick their food and offer feedback through the kiosk.

Although the privacy implications might seem scary (how do you opt out of something that is scanning your biometrics? Can other shoppers see and hear your personalized ads?). But, once in action, it’s hard to not predict that all retailers will be jumping on board with this highly-personalized targeting. Seems like a win compared to a world of static, one-size-fits-all displays.

1. One of the most common misconceptions is that fake fingers can easily fool a fingerprint authentication system. However, with currently-available technology, the optical reader scans the fingerprint and uses an algorithm that can detect three dimensional structures so photocopies, transparencies or latent images of a fingerprint will not be accepted as valid.
2. People fear that companies are storing fingerprint images. Enterprise authentication applications , such as Digital Persona software, do not store an actual fingerprint image, but rather identifies data points on the finger to create a stream of ones and zeros that is a unique representation of the fingerprint.
3. People often make the assumption that someone out there has the same fingerprint they do, when in fact the chances of it happening are extremely slim. It’s estimated that the chance of two people, including twins, having exactly the same fingerprint is less than one-in-a-billion.
4. There is concern around how biometrics addresses people who don’t have fingerprints. Truth be told, there is a rare skin disorder that affects very few people in which they don’t have an identifiable fingerprint..
5. Organizations are often hesitant to deploy biometrics because of the concern short lifespan of the reader itself. In general, fingerprint sensors are designed in mind to last as long as the user’s PC lifecycle . As for specific durability, the Digital Persona optical sensors, for example, can withstand over a million touches with proper use and maintenance of the product
6. Some believe that utilizing biometrics does not allow for multiple users, or that it simply takes too long..Indeed, multiple users can be authenticated on one terminal or computer in a shared computing environment, and it takes just a few hundredths of a second (in our case) to acquire, process, and verify a fingerprint once it has been scanned.
7. Often people think that a PIN is more secure than a fingerprint system. Not true. A 4-digit PIN code has only 10,000 combinations allowing a hacker to easily cycle through these possibilities. Whereas, a reliable fingerprint system, such as from Digital Persona, having 1/100,000 (0.00001%) false acceptance rate requires the hacker to present 100,000 unique touches to break the system.