UK tech firm designs system using emoji instead of PIN numbers for online banking, says they are harder to hack, easier to remember
but there's one potential security flaw Zara Ali / Ubergizmo : Security Software Enables Emoji As Passcode Matt Hanson / TechRadar.com : Your new PIN: Smiley face, two surprised cats, small pile of poo Barbara Speed / New Statesman : How emojis could make passcodes more secure Susmita Baral / iDigitalTimes.com : Emoji Passcode Could Be Coming Soon But Is It Safe? Malarie Gokey / Digital Trends : Smiling cat, rose bud, rocket, clover: Your next PIN could use emoji for added security
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2015 proposal sits at the start of the industry's long retreat from memorized secrets. The UK firm's pitch — swap the four-digit [[a:|PIN]]-style code for an emoji sequence because pictures are easier to recall than digits and the larger symbol set widens the search space — was one of the earliest mainstream attempts to rethink what a banking passcode should be.
The arc since then has validated the problem if not the solution: within a year, Mastercard moved to accept selfies and fingerprints as payment credentials in place of passwords, and by 2021–2023 both Apple and Google were pushing FIDO-style passkeys designed to eliminate the typed secret entirely.
First-order effects
- Banks weighing the system must decide whether a larger, image-based keyspace justifies replacing a credential every customer already knows how to enter — the immediate burden falls on their fraud and UX teams.
Second-order effects
- If emoji codes gain traction with any bank, payment networks like Mastercard face pressure to standardize non-numeric credentials, accelerating the biometric alternatives they had already begun piloting.
Third-order effects
- The deeper pattern is authentication abandoning shared knowledge — whether digits or emojis — for something bound to the user's body or device; passkeys' eventual dominance would render even cleverer memorable secrets obsolete rather than safer.
The trend: Consumer authentication is steadily moving away from memorized shared secrets like PINs toward biometrics and device-bound cryptographic keys.