British digital financial services company Intelligent Environments has released Emoji Passcode as part of its Android digital banking app, allowing users to use Emojis instead of numeric characters as password criteria. Emoji Passcode claims to be the first password technology of its kind, allowing users to utilize 44 Emojis, including popular characters such as the ‘smiling poop,’ to create a four character bank password. 

The company claims that the new password technology will be mathematically more secure than traditional four-digit PIN numbers, as four non-repeating numbers would allow 7,290 unique password permutations whereas, based on their possible selection sample of 44 Emoji, there could be 3,498,308 unique permutations of non-repeating Emojis as possible PIN numbers. Additionally, the feature would also force users to avoid easily available numerical passcodes such as important personal dates and addresses. 

The company launched the feature in its banking app partly as a response to research indicating that almost a third of bank users surveyed in Britain have forgotten their PINs before, while one in four indicated that they use the same PIN for all their cards. Additionally, the company considered the younger generations’ reliance on Emojis:  “Our research shows 64% of millennials regularly communicate only using Emojis. So we decided to reinvent the passcode for a new generation by developing the world’s first Emoji security technology,” said David Webber, Manager Director at Intelligent Environments. 

Additionally, the Emoji Passcode technology was developed as a response to scientific research indicating that human beings are better at remembering pictures than number sequences or words. Memory expert Tony Buzan stated, “The Emoji Passcode plays to humans’ extraordinary ability to remember pictures, which is anchored in our evolutionary history. We remember more information when it’s in pictorial form.”

Intelligent Environments is currently working with banks which are considering utilizing the technology within the next year.