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At some point in the future, a new \u201cMulti-Purpose Tap\u201d concept<\/a> will let payment cards or devices like smartwatches and phones accomplish multiple things at once when using NFC. With this in play, a customer in a store might tap their phone with Apple Wallet or Google Pay on a terminal that simultaneously checks their ID if they\u2019re buying booze, add points to their loyalty account, pay for their goods, and provide them with a digital receipt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Some of the concept\u2019s goals are laid out today in a PDF from the NFC Forum<\/a>, the nonprofit consortium of tech companies that guides and promotes the NFC standard and which includes Apple, Google, and Sony among its roster<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n No more paper, just receipts on my phone? Sign me up. The forum says that this could also be used to share details about a product, like the best way to recycle it, when you use an NFC tap to pay. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n However, the Multi-Purpose Tap vision the forum presents raises some privacy questions. The forum highlights how it also means you, the customer, no longer have to enter your details into a separate tablet next to a register to get your points. But it \u201ccould also be used to trigger specific, targeted marketing communications.\u201d That\u2019s less appealing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The details of how retailers and payment-processing companies would use this in the real world are unknown, but making it too easy for a retailer to link activity to an individual profile can cause all kinds of problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n