Pay with Your Face

Face recognition is not a new technology, but now it became good enough that we can rely on its search results. A company in China is selling service products related to face recognition that can be applied to huge platforms, even banking security to authorize payments, provide access to facilities and track down criminals.

The company is called Face++. The system seems to work quite easily, just like a well-designed system should do. Once a picture is uploaded into the system, your access to buildings, payments confirmations or identity verification goes immediately in place by itself. Writer from the MIT Technology Review revealed that during a test the software developed by Face++ was capable of tracking up to 83 different detailed points of his face from different rooms in the building at the same time, with extremely high accuracy.

The system can offer additional services, such as face comparison, age analysis, gender detection, emotion assumption even eye status. All of this based on just one picture of a face.

This technology could bring quite some convenience to our life. It could ensure more safety than our traditional passwords. But at the same time, it could increase the control over individuals. We are standing at a critical point where we have to make sure this technology is used for good purposes. We want to see our technological advances to truly enhance our life, to ensure a brighter future, not a darker one.

Source: MIT Technology Review. Image: New Scientist