SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR IMPLEMENTING AUTOMATIC PAYER AUTHENTICATION

• US 20150356563A1
• Filed: 06/05/2014
• Published: 12/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Vohra, Nikant, Agarwal, Priyanshu, Raibhandare, Tushar, Annamalai, Prasanna, Pahuja, Anupam
• Granted Patent: US 9,881,303 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/202 Interconnection or interaction of plural electronic cash registers [ECR] or to host computer, e.g. network details, transfer of information from host to ECR or from ECR to ECR
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3224 Transactions dependent on location of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/401 Transaction verification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40145 Biometric identity checks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures

Abstract

A system or method may be provided to facilitate automatic user authentication for electronic transactions. In particular, the system or method may automatically authenticate a customer such that the customer may make complete hands free payments without the intervention of the customer or the merchant. The automatic authentication may include a check-in process and a payment authentication process. When a customer enters a designated area of a merchant, a BLE beacon device of the merchant may automatically check the customer in at the designated area of the merchant. After the customer is checked in at the merchant'"'"'s designated area, the merchant may identify the customer who is about to make a payment from a plurality of other customers who also are checked in at the merchant via Bluetooth proximity and facial recognition in parallel. Thus, the customer may automatically be authenticated to make payments by facial recognition or Bluetooth proximity.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a memory storing a payment account of a user; and

one or more processors in communication with the memory and adapted to;

detect a user device of the user at a merchant;

check the user in at the merchant via a wireless beacon;

authenticate the user for payment at a payment location of the merchant via a facial recognition process.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further adapted to:

receive an image of the user captured at the payment location; and

identify the user from a plurality users who are checked in at the merchant based on the image via the facial recognition process.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the facial recognition process comprises:

analyzing the image of the user to determine facial features within the image;

comparing the facial features within the image with facial profiles of the plurality of users checked in at the merchant; and

determining a facial profile of a user that matches the facial features of the image.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the facial recognition process comprises:

calculating a confidence score for each facial profile of the plurality of users who are checked in at the merchant, the confidence score indicating a degree of similarity between the image and a facial profile; and

determining the matching facial profile based on the confidence scores of the facial profiles.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the matching facial profile has a highest confidence score among the facial profiles.

6. The system of claim 2,

wherein the image includes a plurality of facial images;

and

wherein the one or more processors are further adapted to identify one or more users from among the plurality of users who are checked in at the merchant based on the plurality of facial images.

7. The system of claim 2,

wherein the wireless beacon is installed at the payment location;

and

wherein the one or more processors are further adapted to identify the user from among the plurality users who are checked in at the merchant based on a wireless signal strength of the wireless beacon received at the user device.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the identified user has a user device that receives a greatest signal strength from the wireless beacon indicating that the user device of the identified user is located most proximate to the purchase location among the plurality of checked in user devices.

9. The system of claim 1,

wherein the payment account of the user is associated with a card account;

and

wherein the one or more processors are further adapted to process a payment to the merchant using the card account of the user without requiring submission of information of the card account at the payment location of the merchant.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the payment location is an unmanned merchant location.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the user is automatically authenticated and a payment is automatically made from the user to the merchant without intervention of the user or the merchant.

12. A method comprising:

detecting, by a hardware processor, a user device of a user of a payment account at a merchant;

checking, by the hardware processor, the user in at the merchant via a wireless beacon;

authenticating, by the hardware processor, the user for payment at a payment location of the merchant via a facial recognition process.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

collecting images of the user for authenticating the user via facial recognition; and

analyzing the images of the user to build a facial profile for the user.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the images of the user are collected from one or more of a contact list of the user, a social network account of the user, a digital photo album of the user, and images captured by the user.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the facial profile of the user comprises information indicating unique facial features of the user.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the facial profiles are updated periodically with newly received images of the user.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions which, in response to execution by a computer system, cause the computer system to perform a method comprising:

detecting a user device of a user of a payment account at a merchant;

checking the user in at the merchant via a wireless beacon;

authenticating the user for payment at a payment location of the merchant via a facial recognition process.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving an image of the user and a voice recording of the user captured at the payment location; and

identifying the user from among a plurality of users that are checked in at the merchant based on the image and the voice recording of the user.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving facial images of two users captured at the payment location; and

identifying the two users from among a plurality of users that are checked in at the merchant based on the facial images the two users.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the method further comprises receiving instructions for dividing the payment among payment accounts of the two users.