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(LifeSiteNews) — Mastercard announced last week the global launch of a “Biometric Checkout Program” by which consumers can pay with a “quick smile” or wave of the hand, prompting concerns that the program is yet another move to reduce consumer privacy and could potentially be used to enforce social control.

Mastercard said will the program would be used by banks, merchants, and tech providers.

The Biometric Checkout Program is being touted by Mastercard as a faster, more secure, and more hygienic method of payment, to be used at “stores of all sizes, from major retailers to mom-and-pop shops.”  The release explained that once a consumer has enrolled “into their biometric checkout services, in store or at home, through a merchant or identity provider app,” all they need to do at checkout is “smile into a camera or wave their hand over a reader to pay.”

While the company extols its convenience and “security,” others are warning about the risks such a biometric system could pose to basic freedoms. The Daily Expose noted, “The rise of artificial intelligence also means that as data from digital ID systems is gathered, algorithms are being built that may have a major impact on people. These systems … are neither transparent in operation nor clear even as to who or what is building them, and for what purposes.”

The Daily Expose hinted at the potential for the program’s integration into a social credit system that could limit the buying options of select individuals: “It may be, in the future, that people will find they no longer have consumer options such as low-cost bank loans due to the decisions of algorithms whose working are not transparent to the public.”

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The pilot Biometric Checkout Program was launched last week, together with one of Mastercard’s program partners, Payface, to use the checkout technology in five St. Marche supermarkets in São Paulo, Brazil. “Future pilots are being planned for roll-out in the Middle East and Asia,” the press release added.

The president of Mastercard’s Cyber & Intelligence business, Ajay Bhalla, lauded the program as a way to heighten the security of transactions, which are often plagued by cases of stolen identity. 

“The way we pay needs to keep pace with the way we live, work, and do business, offering choice to consumers with the highest levels of security,” said Bhalla. “Our goal with this new program is to make shopping a great experience for consumers and merchants alike, providing the best of both security and convenience.”

Biometric data has been increasingly incorporated into ID verification across the world over the past decade in particular. As far back as 2009, India began a project to give every citizen a digital ID including fingerprint or iris scans, and in 2010, Mastercard was already working with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to provide a “biometric authentication of transaction payments.”

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The pace of digital ID development and usage has only been accelerating since the COVID-19 outbreak. The European Union has already begun implementation of a digital ID wallet to store biometric data like facial recognition and fingerprints, acting as the gateway to a wide range of services like opening a bank account, applying to a university, renting a car, and checking into a hotel.

While an identification method as airtight as biometrics could be used to circumvent identity theft, it could also cement the exclusion of certain individuals, such as the unjabbed, from access to goods and services. 

Under the pretext of protection from COVID-19, people without COVID passports, which typically require “vaccination” or a negative COVID-19 test, have been denied entry to public venues such as restaurants and even supermarkets over the past two years. Last year, a 100-year-old woman in Chile was denied entry to a supermarket to buy her lunch food because she did not have the necessary health pass.

Besides the Daily Expose, some have explicitly warned that a Chinese-style social credit system could easily be implemented via such digital IDs. China expert Reggie Littlejohn, co-founder of StopVaxPassports.org, has warned that in addition to “vaccination” status, “the rest of the functionality of the Chinese Social Credit System can be integrated into the ‘Vaccine Passport’ system in a matter of minutes or hours.”

In an August 31 webinar, Littlejohn explained that the Chinese social credit system “tracks and integrates” a vast array of personal information, including a person’s “medical history, social media posts, bank accounts, credit cards, shopping history, internet search history, residence, place of employment, criminal history, facial and gait recognition, network of relationships, religious activities… and real-time physical location.”

Littlejohn warns that vaccine passports would provide a centralized platform with which to collect and curate all such personal data, which “can provide the same totalitarian functionality as used by the Chinese ‘Social Credit System.’”

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