Alibaba buys eye-scan security firm
By Retail Technology | Friday September 23 2016
The finance arm of China ecommerce giant Alibaba has bought US biometric authentication technology firm EyeVerify
According to Bloomberg, Alibaba’s payments affiliate Ant Financial intends to use the EyeVerify technology to secure consumers’ online data and transactions.
EyeVerify uses pictures of the human eyeball to unlock mobile services and will become a wholly-owned unit of Ant Financial.
Ant began using EyeVerify’s EyePrint ID on its payment authentication platform earlier this year.
Jason Lu, vice president of fraud risk management at Ant Financial, said in an interview: "Full integration will allow us to move faster and agile in a way that we can apply the technology in China and globalisation strategy in India, and places where Alipay will expand into the next few years."
EyeVerify checks identities through eye-vein patterns when the user places a smartphone 12 inches from their face so a picture can be taken.
Bloomberg reports that the deal is worth $70 million.
