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Editor's note: A spokesperson for PayPal has since said the company has no plans to develop "edible verification systems." The following is a statement from PayPal: "We have no plans to develop injectable or edible verification systems. It's clear that passwords as we know them will evolve and we aim to be at the forefront of those developments. We were a founding member of the FIDO alliance, and the first to implement fingerprint payments with Samsung. New PayPal-driven innovations such as one touch payments make it even easier to remove the friction from shopping. We're always innovating to make life easier and payments safer for our customers no matter what device or operating system they are using."
SALT LAKE CITY — Being forced to remember a gazillion Internet passwords can be a tough pill to swallow, so PayPal is developing one that goes down a little easier.
Literally.
That’s right. PayPal is working to create an ingestible pill containing a microchip that users can swallow, effectively turning their bodies into an electronic key that unlocks the service every time they're near a computer, according to the Daily Beast.
In a presentation titled “Kill All Passwords,” PayPal’s head of global developer advocacy Jonathan Leblanc argued online passwords present a major safety issue and should be replaced by biometric identification systems that can be ingested, injected or embedded in a person’s body, according to Tech Times.
“If there’s a weak password you need to harden that with something physical behind it,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
Leblanc predicts “antiquated” identification methods such as fingerprinting will be replaced by internal methods that identify individual heartbeat and veins, thus paving the way for “natural body identification,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
The password pill would be powered by your own stomach acid, Leblanc said, empowering users to take charge of their own online security.
In addition to the pill, PayPal is also exploring the idea of embeddable silicon chips that would serve as “wearable computer tattoos,” sending information through WiFi, the Journal reported.
