You can now use the Apple iPhone X Face ID function to login to your eBay account and start shopping, according to a recent eBay announcement.
By using the Apple iPhone X Face ID function you can verify that is really you that’s using your device, and accessing services, simply by letting your smartphone see your face.
As eBay notes in its announcement of this new development: “From more powerful devices with faster processors, larger screens with richer displays, and seamless biometric authentication options, to the increasingly personalized and streamlined experiences built on top of them, each innovation sets a new, higher expectation for the next, and, as consumers, we expect them to simply work. Apple’s launch of the iPhone X and its much-anticipated Face ID authentication technology was no different.
Face ID makes it easier to log in to your phone or your apps. No more having to remember a password or even scan a finger—now all you need is your face. And shopping on the eBay app is just as easy because we’ve enabled Face ID for the latest iPhone X.”
Face ID is certainly an idea we will be seeing much more of in the future when it comes to authentification and online security. Anyone who has recently passed through an airport and used the passport machines that scan your face will know that it’s actually quite well established there.
But the Apple iPhone X is, as it stands at the moment, an expensive and niche device with a minuscule take up, so it seems unlikely that this development will have any immediate impact on a large number of eBay buyers or sellers. But it is likely the shape of things to come.