The Central Bank of Russia revealed a system that will collect biometric data from commercial banks’ customers and use it to authenticate their transactions.
Since June 30th, the Unified System of Identification and Authentication (USIA) is available at more than 400 bank locations in 140 Russian cities. To register for the service, Russian citizens must make a one-time customer identification procedure, submitting their facial and vocal biometric data, by visiting an authorized bank.
The implementation of the new system will enable customers to remotely access any bank’s financial services. To open a bank account, apply for a loan or make a transfer at another bank, the consumer first need to authenticate himself in the USIA and confirm his data on a smartphone, tablet or desktop computer equipped with a camera and microphone.
The dual system relies on facial and voice recognition technologies. Defense mechanisms deny authentication in case of a low match score to the original biometric data stored in the unified system. The secure cloud infrastructure of Rostelecom hosts the digital platform, which banks access via special communication channel. A mobile app is under development for that purpose.
An exhaustive list of the banks allowed to use theUSIA is published by the Central Bank of Russia.
Picture: theduran.com
