Farewell signature, farewell password…

The four largest US credit card companies, American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa, have collectively announced they will stop asking establishments that use their network to take customers’ signature to complete a transaction. The move makes sense: signatures provide no real security: employees in restaurants and stores have no way to verify a signature and there are any number of examples of people using doodles or even drawings when signing a purchase made with a credit card.

In short, technology has eclipsed the need for a signature through the use of PINs and biometrics, such as the fingerprint or the face for smartphone payments. Increasingly, we are even using selfies or scans of identity documents for contracts or when we open a bank account.

Joining the signature on the road to extinction is the password, thanks to the growing use of password managers which mean we no longer have to remember the same password for everything or keep a long list of them written down lest we forget them. Instead, services like LastPass, 1Password and others create random passwords for each of the many services we now access online. At the same time, biometrics are increasingly coming into play. Each morning I put on my smartwatch, which is unlocked when I point my smartphone by looking quickly at the screen. When I open my laptop, the same thing happens…