IBM Personal Banking Machine, c.1987

On-street cash machines need to retrieve account details from the bank’s central headquarters without them being captured by criminals eavesdropping on the phone lines. In 1973, computer giant IBM developed a powerful mathematical encryption method known as Lucifer for its ATMs. When the US government wanted an encryption system to protect civilian computer networks, it used a modified version of Lucifer which became known as ‘DES’, or Data Encryption Standard. This became a global standard for data security for over two decades, and is built into this cash machine.