Pay By Touch, which had enabled shoppers to pay through fingerprint verification rather than old-school cash or plastic swiping, is no longer being accepted at merchants, including Jewel-Osco stores in the Chicago area.
“Pay by Touch has ceased operations of their biometric payment technology,” signs posted throughout a Jewel on State Street announced Wednesday. “We will no longer be able to accept Pay By Touch as a form of payment.”
It turns out that California-based Solidus Networks, owner of Pay By Touch, announced late Wednesday that it will no longer process biometric transactions anywhere as 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
The ceasing of operations comes about three months after Solidus filed for Chapter 11 U.S. bankruptcy protection.
Pay By Touch technology was rolled out in January 2006 in all 204 Jewel and Jewel-Osco stores in what had been its biggest deal to date. By March 2006, nearly 10,000 Jewel shoppers had signed up for the service. It also had been rolled out at Cub Food stores in Illinois.
But some shoppers — and civil liberties experts — were uneasy about the technology.
Jewel-Osco has disabled all Pay By Touch equipment until it can be physically removed, spokesman Miguel Alba said.
In a letter to merchants Wednesday, Pay By Touch blamed “economic conditions and a change in strategic directions.”
“Like you, Pay By Touch is committed to maintaining the security of consumer and financial data,” it told merchants. “Please note that PBT-related equipment in your stores contains consumer data and should be properly secured and/or destroyed.”
Solidus said that as part of its restructuring, it determined it “could no longer support the biometric authentication and payment system as it currently exists, based on lack of funding and current market conditions.”
