Your New Bank PIN Could be Smiley Face, Thumbs Up, Heart Symbol

GalaxyS2UK-based technology company Intelligent Environments has created an emoji-based passcode that claims to be easier to remember and more mathematically secure than existing number-based systems.

According to Professor Vyv Evans of Bangor University, emoji is the UKs fastest growing language, and now users can substitute their traditional PINs with smiley faces, cats and cartoon hearts.

The emoji passcode technology has been integrated into Intelligent Environments Android mobile banking app, and lets users pick from a bank of 44 different characters, meaning there are 480 times more permutations than traditional four-digit passcodes.

According to the firm, research shows that nearly a third of UK residents have forgotten their PINs at some point, while 25 per cent use the same PIN for all cards, making them less secure and easier for criminals or hackers to break through.

In addition to being more difficult to crack, emoji are supposedly easier to memorise, due to the fact that humans are more skilled at remembering images than numbers.

“The Emoji Passcode plays to humans extraordinary ability to remember pictures, which is anchored in our evolutionary history,” said Tony Buzan, memory expert. “We remember more information when its in pictorial form, thats why the Emoji Passcode is better than traditional PINs.”

“Weve had input from lots of millennials when we developed the technology,” said David Webber, managing director at Intelligent Environments. “Whats clear is that the younger generation is communicating in new ways. Our research shows 64 per cent of millennials regularly communicate only using emojis. So we decided to reinvent the passcode for a new generation by developing the worlds first emoji security technology.”