track289 Lyrics

A supermarket in southern Germany is the setting for a retail revolution. What is changing is not what people are buying, but how they're paying for it.

Покупательница сканирует пальцы руки у магазинной кассы
Новым способом оплаты покупок уже пользуются 250 тыс. жителей Германии
I watch as one customer completes her shopping at the checkout. Instead of reaching for the handbag and taking out cash, or credit cards, or a cheque book, she puts her finger into a scanner and takes a receipt.

She's one of a quarter of a million Germans who now foot their bills with their fingerprints. Turning your digit into a debit card is simple - you just register your bank account details together with your fingerprint in the shop's database. But how safe is it? Ulrich Kipper is the IT manager who developed the system:

ULRICH KIPPER: The probability that fingerprints can be mixed up is one to 10 million. So it's a fairly low probability that we make an error. If you compare it to the likeliness of being out in the night and being robbed, I would say this happens rather frequently, and I would say with the fingerprint system we are fairly on the safe side.

Your digit can also double up as a loyalty card - so as well as paying with your finger, you can also earn points with your pinkie. And it's not just supermarkets. At some German schools, students are now using biometrics to buy their school dinners. Finger food - German style.

* retail revolution - зд. революционные изменения способов оплаты покупок
* checkout - кассы
* foot their bills with their fingerprints - расплачиваются за покупки путем сканирования кончиков пальцев рук у кассы
* digit - палец
* can be mixed up - могут быть перепутаны
* double up - выполнять вторую функцию
* loyalty card - дисконтной карты
* pinkie - мизинцем
* biometrics - биометрию
* finger food - зд. игра слов: имеется ввиду еда, оплаченная путем сканирования кончика пальца

Репортажи о других заметных событиях