In September last year I suggested the JIT lattes concept: service businesses like fast-food outlets and coffee shops provide regular customers with RFID cards, so that on walking in the store the kitchen can be notified to prepare their normal order and shave minutes off the time it takes to process each customer.
But that means customers have to carry more plastic in their wallets. You get around this by ditching the card and injecting the RFID chip under the skin of the customer, as some European beach clubs are doing to help members leave their wallets back in the room-safe. But your average store customer is not yet ready to implant a bunch of Cyborgian chips in their bicep. Along comes biometrics, allowing German shoppers to now use their fingerprint to pay for groceries.
It's early days, of course, and privacy issues abound. I can see the CSI team earnestly looking to identify a partial print from a crime scene: "No hits on AFIS. Better try WalMart."
Will people who would go to court to prevent the government from getting their fingerprints on file be willing to let their supermarket have a record of their fingerprints? Of course they will. If e-commerce has taught us anything about consumers, it's that convenience beats out privacy and security every time. It's your finger -- don't leave home without it.
