PayPal already exploring integrating Touch ID into their mobile payment app
With Apple in iOS 8 extending Touch ID functionality to third parties, Business Insider reports that PayPal is already exploring the possibility of having users authorize payments via their own fingerprint instead of with a password.
It has since been confirmed by PayPal's Anuj Nayar that the digital payment company did in fact send a team of developers to WWDC where they attended a Touch ID workshop.
Yesterday, a team of PayPal developers attended a session on Touch ID, Apple's fingerprint-scanning system, at the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, a PayPal source told us.
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"It seems to be a fairly easy API to use, but we're still kicking the tires," the PayPal source tells us.
Note that PayPal's app wouldn't have direct access to a user's fingerprint data, but would rather receive a "yes/no" verification as to the fingerprint's authenticity from the core OS.
Touch ID initially launched as the flagship feature on the iPhone 5s last year, and while the initial rollout was fraught with misguided paranoia, the feature has quickly become an understated, accepted, and potentially powerful part of the iOS ecosystem.
