IDG News Service — Going to an ATM can be an unnerving, vulnerable experience: You're faced against a wall, taking out cash with little visibility as to whom is watching you.

Fraudsters have capitalized on this vulnerability, spying on people close and far away to record their four-digit PINs and inventing clever ways to capture payment cards or record details from the cards' magnetic strips, which contain account information.

But a dozen product-design students at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design have come up with innovative ways to make ATMs feel safer. Their projects were unveiled on Thursday as part of the Design Against ATM Crime exhibition at the college in the Holborn area of central London, ironically an ATM fraud hot spot.

The project was done in partnership with NCR (NCR), a maker of ATM machines; the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit (DCPCU), which investigates banking fraud; LINK, the U.K. electronic cash machine network; and RBS bank.

In 2009, U.K. financial institutions lost some £80.9 million (US$133 million) due to cloned cards, down from £169.8 million in 2008, according to the U.K. Cards Association and Financial Fraud Action U.K.

Cloned cards are made by "skimming" the magnetic strip from a payment card, which is usually accomplished by attaching a device to an ATM machine by the card slot. The account information is then encoded onto another blank card. Fraudulent withdrawals are then possible if the criminal has the person's PIN.

Olesja Shevchenko, a student from Estonia who is graduating this year with a degree in product design, created an ATM safety system using directional sound technology called Audio Spotlight, which focuses sounds in specific areas.

The system is designed to thwart so-called shoulder surfing, when a criminal is surreptitiously trying to watch a person enter their PIN. The Audio Spotlight speakers, which are used in some museums, are placed in the ceiling near the ATM. A person who is queueing properly will hear birds singing, but if they drift too close to the person using the ATM, they hear the sound of a buzzing mosquito, which can intensify if they move too close.

Shevchenko said she intended to make the system have a positive reward system. "I'm always looking to make it more fun for people rather than signs and warnings. Sometimes it's more about what you do right."

She wasn't able to make a full mock-up of the system, however: Just one of the speakers can cost £1,200, so the design remains on paper for now.

Continue Reading