POSTED BY Abner Pinedo
The Coin card was created by San Francisco-based startup. The Coin card boasts the ability to save up to eight credit, debit, ATM or loyalty cards on one single coin. The card is credit-card sized and has a plastic rectangular LCD screen with a button that allows you to alternate from card to card. It is connected to a compatible Android or iOS smartphone through the Coin application. The card is essentially trying to eliminate the need of carrying an exorbitant amount of cards in your wallet. Currently, Coin has been released in its beta testing form, but the rest of the public will be receiving their pre-ordered Coins by an unknown date in 2015. The idea is phenomenal, but there are a large number of security risks, thus possible legal implications that may arise in the near future.
The Coin card reader is technically cloning credit cards and may be possibly violating forgery laws. The only difference is that the user themselves is duplicating their own cards instead of someone else’s. There is also the serious issue of user’s violating their cardholder agreements when duplicating their cards. Further, there are privacy concerns in regards to how Coin manages to save a user’s credit card information with a third party application. In order to use the Coin a user must store their card information in an official mobile application and it is sent to the Coin card via Bluetooth. Then the small LCD screen on the card emulates the card’s name, as well as the expiration date and CVV. By making this information visibly available it also opens itself up to credit card thefts when utilized in public locations, such as restaurants and stores.
Coin has not been officially released to the major public, but we will be hearing about it very soon. Alternative payment methods have been on the arise, especially after Apple Company announced the new iPhone 6’s newly developed payment method. There is no doubt that these alternative payment methods will be challenged in the near future by our legal system.
