South Korea-based biometrics technology provider Suprema has announced a partnership with the Venezuelan government that will see its fingerprint scanners used to authenticate and authorize customers at the country’s pharmacies and supermarkets.
It’s part of the government’s effort to crack down on the country’s shortage of staple consumer goods, and rampant smuggling across the border to Colombia. The fingerprint scanners will be installed starting near the border, and will ensure that no single customer is able to purchase more than her share of a single item.
It’s reminiscent of a similar program underway in India, where that country’s national government is hoping that by administering consumer subsidies through its biometric identity card system it will be able to limit government inefficiencies and graft.
In a way, it’s also a mirror vision of what’s been going on with mobile commerce at the other end of the consumer spectrum, where fingerprint-scanning is used to authenticate purchases over payment platforms such as Apple Pay. In that sense, the Venezuela project is a fusion of the growing field of biometric consumer authentication, and the burgeoning security screening market.
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December 2, 2014 – by Alex Perala