A Whiff of What’s in Your Wallet

Scented credit cards actually date back to 2006, when Tokyo-based JCB, the largest credit card issuer in Japan, launched the deliciously fruity-scented LINDA Sweet credit card as a marketing tool to help their card stand out in a crowded wallet. But now, thanks to David Bonalle and Glen Salow (who already hold over 150 issued and pending patents in various applications of credit card biometric security), American Express may become the first to utilize Scent Authentication to verify the identity of the card holder by synchronizing the encrypted “smellprint” on record with the actual person using the card

Unlike your signature on the back of your credit card (the one nobody ever checks anyway), your “biosignature” is completely unique and cannot be forged–good news for nervous consumers in an age of surging credit card fraud and identity theft. U.S. Patent #7497375 (which claims a priority date of July 1, 2004 but was actually issued just last year) proposes that “… olfactory biometrics may include odorants that a body generates when odor evaporates from and/or any portion thereof. As discussed herein, these odorants may be collectively referred to as a ’smellprint.’ Biometric security system 2202 may include a biometric sensor 2204 which may be configured with an electronic sensor, a chemical sensor, and/or an electronic or chemical sensor configured as an array of chemical sensors, wherein each chemical sensor may detect a specific odorants, or smell. In another embodiment, biometric sensor 2204 may be configured as a gas chromatograph, spectrometer, conductivity sensor, piezoelectric sensor and/or other hardware and/or software that facilitates the capture of biometric data from the person such as, for example, scanning, detecting or otherwise sensing a smellprint of cardmember.”

The biometric security system will not rely on human olfactory prowess but on an “e-nose” device such as a wand designed to pull air into a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry chamber to sample the scent signature of the presenter against the scent signature embedded into his card.

So, yeah, if that guy at the mini-mart asks for a sniff of your armpit before ringing up your Pepsi and Fritos, it’s still weird.