On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 12:29:46 -0700, Owen DeLong said:
It is far preferable for the merchant to request ID and verify that the signature matches the ID _AND_ the picture in the ID matches the customer.
Maybe from the anti-fraud standpoint, but not necessarily from the merchant's viewpoint. It's only better if nobody's standing in line. If matching the ID and signature and picture reduces fraud from 4% to 3%, but increases the time to serve the customer by 5%, you're losing money due to fewer sales/hour. And the local supermarket can save a *whole* bunch of money if they can get me to scan my own stuff and pay with a debit card with minimal/no interaction with the staff. Sure, might be a bit higher fraud rate, but being able to run 4 almost-unattended checkout lines more than covers it. Figure a warm body costs $8/hour - as long as the added fraud is under $32/hour, they're coming out ahead.