QR Codes Are A Fraud Risk

Dateline: Kampala, 4th October 2024.Earlier this year The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a warning about the “growing abuse” of QR codes and it is certainly the case that QR crime is growing. So given that we saw the 50th anniversary of the first barcode transaction this year, perhaps we should start thinking about what will come next.ShareJet PropelledFifty years ago, in June 1974, the first swipe of a Universal Product Code (UPC) standard black and white stripes barcode occurred at a Marsh’s Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. (It was for a 67-cent pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum, by the way).Twenty years on from that, in 1994, Mr. Masahiro Hara got tired of having to scan six or seven barcodes on every box of parts that zoomed past on the assembly line at the Toyota car parts factory where he worked. He couldn’t help but wonder why they were still using those limited capacity 1970s barcodes when there was so much more data that needed to be read. After studying a game of Go, he came up with the two-dimensional barcodes that we now know as the QR Code.Twenty years on and in 2014, QR codes were being used for all sorts of things and Mr. Hara was awarded the Europen Inventor Awards “Popular Prize” and which point he said that that QR codes would likely only last about a decade before they were replaced by something more sophisticated.Well, they haven’t been yet, and here we are in 2024, and QR codes are everywhere. Was Mr. Hara wrong?with…QR Codes Are A Fraud Risk