CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Another sign that passwords are on their way out as a means to access online accounts—Bank of America wants to replace passwords with biometrics.
Bank of America executive Michelle Moore, head of digital banking for BofA, told the Charlotte Observer that in an era of hacking traditional IDs and passwords are prime targets, which is one reason Bank of America is exploring iris scanning and facial recognition as alternatives.
“If you think about all the breaches and everything going on in the world, passwords need to go away,” said Moore, who is based in Charlotte. “No. 1, people forget them. No. 2, they’re not safe,” she told the publication.
For now, fingerprints are the only type of biometric data Bank of America customers can use to verify their identities on phones and other devices. The bank recently announced plans to roll out fingerprint verification on certain personal computers with new Intel technology, the newspaper said.
But since this summer, the bank has also been testing iris-scanning technology with phone-maker Samsung. It’s too early to say what will happen once testing is complete, Moore told the Observer.
The second-largest U.S. bank is also testing Apple’s new facial-recognition technology feature on the iPhone X.