WASHINGTON–Attorneys General in nine states have sent a letter to the nation’s card associations and top issuers calling on them to require PINs rather than signatures to approve purchases made with new chip-based credit cards.
The request was made by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Columbia, and was sent to the chief executives of Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Bank of America, Capital One Finance Group, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase.
“The chip-and-PIN approach is considered by many to be the gold standard currently for payment card security,” the letter states. “Countries that have implemented chip-and-PIN cards have seen significant reductions in fraudulent transactions.”
Chip-and-PIN is used in approximately 80 countries.
“There can be no doubt that this is a less secure standard since signatures can easily be forged or copied or even ignored,” the attorneys general went on to say. “Unlike signatures, PIN numbers can be changed easily and as frequently as needed by the consumer. Absent this additional protection, your customers and our citizens will be more vulnerable to damaging data breaches. This is something we cannot accept.”
The letter dismissed claims that using a PIN would be burdensome for consumers, noting that consumers already use PINs with debit cards. The attorneys general said they are not seeking legislation requiring PINs, but rather calling on card companies and banks to make the change “as good corporate citizens.”
The National Retail Foundation hailed the letter, as it has been lobbying for chip-and-PIN and arguing that chip-and-signature is “fraud-prone.”
While chips make the new cards more difficult to counterfeit than traditional magnetic stripe cards, the NRF said that chip can be circumvented, and the chips do nothing to protect lost and stolen cards from being used.
The FBI also recently urged adoption of chip-and-PIN.
“This is further proof that top law enforcement officials and security experts agree that continued reliance on an illegible scrawl isn’t good enough to protect American consumers when the technology of a secret, secure PIN is readily available,” NRF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan said. “Banks and credit card companies should heed the advice being given them and immediately implement chip-and-PIN. That’s the standard used around the world and U.S. consumers deserve nothing less.”