NEW WAY TO PAY: An employee demonstrates how to use a fingerprint payment system. The system has been put into operation in some stores in Shanghai

You are at the ATM machine. You have your credit card ready, but can't remember the password. You have several credit cards, and it is always a headache to remember the password of each.

You sit at home, logging onto the computer to pay your gas bill, electricity bill and numerous other bills. You key in your username and password for each account. To guard against hackers, you rack your brain to come up with complicated passwords and change them frequently. Someday, you will mess them up.

Now there could be a solution to all those password and number problems in the form of fingerprint recognition systems. They can be used in shops and restaurants and even at home via a fingerprint reader that plugs into a computer's USB outlet.

The touch-and-pay lifestyle is no longer science fiction. Today's biometric authentication technology has made it true. In Shanghai, a bank fingerprint bankcard payment system has been put into operation. Shanghai was the first Asian city to have such a system, and now, the system is spreading to other Chinese cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

"The banks are using living fingerprint recognition technology, the most mature, safe, stable and convenient biometric technology. The recognition technology is tamper proof and counterfeit proof. Forged or duplicated fingerprint images cannot pass the recognition system," said Dr. Tan Tieniu, a research fellow at the Center for Biometric Authentication and Testing (CBAT), Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Tan is also the President of the Institute of Automation and deputy secretary-in-general of CAS. According to Tan, every fingerprint is unique, which produces unique fingerprint data. Only the account owner can access the account and make payments. This guarantees the privacy and safety of bank accounts.

According to scientists, if there are 6 billion people on earth, there will be no two identical fingerprints in 300 years.

The fingerprint payment system in Shanghai uses fingerprint feature data recognition technology, which quantifies the minutiae of a fingerprint such as bifurcations and curves, and compresses the data to allow for easy storage, fast recognition and transmission. The data has been codified into a fingerprint password.

"Pressing a finger with different force or at different angles you will generate different data, so the fingerprint passwords produced are dynamic, which further guarantees its safety," said Liu Lili, Editor of Chinese magazine Computer World.