Selfies could replace passwords and pin codes

A useless hobby could become useful after all...

Taking selfies could possibly be used as an alternative to passwords if new trial technology is successful.

Instead of using chip and pin, 500 MasterCard customers are going to be asked to take a selfie on their smartphone when making transactions in America.

The photo will then be transferred to a digital code of 1s and 0s, and matched against an image held on file.

MasterCard have teamed up with every major smartphone company, including Apple, Samsung, Google, BlackBerry and Microsoft as well as two major banks to complete the trial but MasterCard's Ajay Bhalla says it is time well spent as people have too many passwords and this has been causing problems.

“We want to identify people for who they are, not what they remember,” he told CNN News.

Which, for a lot of people, is very little.

This payment method will be available via the MasterCard smartphone app which also gives people the option to pay using their fingerprint.