«Сбер» внедрит оплату алкоголя и сигарет «по лицу» вместо паспорта

"Sber", together with the Unified Biometric System (UBS), plans to introduce a new way to pay for goods marked 18+ — using biometrics. This means that buyers will be able to pay for alcohol and cigarettes, confirming their age by scanning their face instead of presenting a passport.

The project, which is in the architecture development stage, will be implemented jointly with the National Payment Card System (NPCS) and will be available to customers of any bank. As part of this service, users will be able to confirm their age using biometric data registered in the UBS, regardless of which bank their account is linked to. Currently, the service architecture is being developed and согласование с регуляторами.

"Sber" has already installed about 750 thousand payment terminals that read biometrics, and plans to increase their number to one million by the end of the year. As of February 2024, the UBS stores about 70 million biometric data of Russians, including 30 million data provided by "Sber".

This project aims to simplify the age verification process when purchasing goods in the 18+ category. At the same time, biometric data, according to experts, is more reliable and harder to forge compared to passports. However, there are also some risks, such as the possibility of mismatching biometric data due to changes in appearance or injuries, which will require updating the data in the system.

The service will be available for both online purchases and in-store purchases through self-service checkouts. Although biometric technologies promise to improve the accuracy and reliability of age verification, there are concerns about their mass use and data privacy management.

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