A payment card watchdog linked to France's central bank says more standards are needed before biometric transactions can be rolled out on a bigger scale.In its annual report, the Observatory for Payment Card Security wrote that the some biometric techniques already in use by a growing share of the public “could come to reinforce the security of payment transactions”.However, it added that the level of security offered by the current biometric devices is hard to evaluate in comparison to existing proven technologies.The body wrote that “because of the inherent limitations of biometrics and the immaturity of the evaluations of these devices”, that the Observatory recommends always keeping a means of alternative authentication method available.The same report also covers the stance of the French Data Protection authority or Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertÉs (CNIL).In this section, it notes that the CNIL has authorised the use of biometrics as an authentication factor to gain access to means of payment, or perform remote operations, but only as “as part experimentation”.”The CNIL is determined to not impose biometrics in all everyday uses and to ensure that persons concerned remain in control of their biometric data.Control by the people of their biometric data is undeniably reduced when ߪ a biometric template is stored in remote servers and not placed under the exclusive control of the person concerned”.The Observatory also noted that just 0.043% of transactions (representing US$258 million) were fraudulent in 2014, down from 0.046% the previous year.
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