China is, by all means, the country at the top of Facial Recognition tech. Which are the reasons? The Chinese government system controls and centralises all identity data; another reason is its large population. China is also at the top of leaders worldwide supplying valuable-cutting edge technology research.

How does Facial Recognition work?

First of all, Facial Recognition started several years ago, and after lots of trials the error frequencies became very low; after a short time, only eight out of 1,000 scans were pinpointed. Alibaba is an excellent example of a modern Chinese company investing in several uses of Facial Recognition.

A Facial Recognition system is a technology qualified for identifying a personal identity through a digital image or a video. It is usually used as access control in security systems and can be contrasted to other approaches such as fingerprint or eye iris recognition systems.

Let’s go into the countless ways you can benefit from it:

• Police operation and security – It goes from minor infractions like shoplifting to major ones, such as murder or another criminal-suspects recognition. It can be done in real-time based on images from cameras supporting identity data bank.
• Identify children or ageing people who are lost.
• Prevent crime when criminals recognise where cameras have been set up.
• There are some Chinese cities where augmented reality glasses are used to contrast faces against multiple faces integrating the national database, to identify potential offenders.
• Payment applications - instead of paying with credit card or cash, you can do it just smiling to a 3D camera (trendy among youngsters,) which scan your face to validate your identity, so that you can go on with your purchase and payment.
• This kind of technology can also be used in hospitals where a machine can recognise you and allow us to pay bills. Terminals could be used as a self-serve screen without the need for a card or a phone, done just in seconds.
• “Bio-identification," now used in city subways encompassing Facial Recognition and palm identification systems that improve time-efficiency and avoid the use of tickets.
• The “Future Pharmacy”, a technology launched by Alipay, is when the customer, previously registered with it, validates its identity through Facial Recognition on a mobile device.
• “The Automated Clearance system” used in some Chinese international airport terminal where in just 12 seconds the passengers can scan their ID card, make use of security-checking machines to complete the security-check process. This technology allows a terminal to clear more than 1,500 passengers through the security in an hour. And not far away will come the time when aerial terminals use Facial Recognition tech to match a passenger with their luggage while passing through safety inspection.
• Facial Recognition is currently used at Chinese hotels to avoid long lines on the check-in process, reducing the time to not more than 3 minutes, therefore, improving the hotel operating efficiency. How does it work? By making it available for the guest to scan their IDs, taking a photo and entering contact details. As soon as your identity is validated, you get a personal room key.

Facial Recognition apps currently adopted in China are countless: support the registration process for universities, to alert teacher when students are daydreaming in class, as well as driver authentication for Didi, a Chinese Uber rival, and the uses can go on and on.

Summing up: The Chinese Ministry of Public Security began its journey to build the world's most expansive Facial Recognition database in 2015. Why not update your technology and start deploying Facial Recognition applications in your company?

Dave Food

Prophetic Technology

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