The era of face scanning has begun, and facial recognition technology is bringing about a silent revolution

Criminals have nowhere to hide, shopping only requires face scanning, boarding passes are a thing of the past... In these 16 major areas, facial recognition technology is bringing about silent changes.

Editor's note: This article is from "Wall Street Journal", written by Zhang Jiawei, and reprinted by 36Kr with permission.

Facial recognition technology has developed by leaps and bounds. For the general public, the most common use is to unlock mobile phones, but in fact it can do much more than that.

CB Insights said in a recent report that although facial recognition technology is still in its development stage, many companies, including Amazon, see it as a disruptive force in many fields. From creating retail stores without cashiers to making concert tickets disappear completely, facial recognition technology is gradually changing the following 16 fields.

1. Public security law enforcement

CB Insights reports that in the United States, people's interest in facial recognition technology has surged in recent years, with the number of patent applications exploding before 2016 and remaining at a high level in recent years.

Many companies and research institutions are working with the government to provide facial recognition technology to law enforcement agencies. For example, Amazon is providing this technology to law enforcement agencies in the United States.

In addition, Carnegie Mellon University is also researching video surveillance enhancement technology to help law enforcement agencies better identify suspects. The report said:

The school has obtained a patent related to "facial feature changes", which can help law enforcement agencies identify suspects wearing masks by reconstructing the entire facial features by only obtaining features around the eyes.

However, the report also mentioned that because this technology is still in its early stages, the algorithm cannot distinguish between subtle differences in different faces and skin colors, making it difficult to provide accurate information to law enforcement agencies.

In addition, facial recognition technology still has flaws. For example, Amazon was once exposed by the media for mistakenly identifying some US congressmen as criminals.

2. Healthcare

In the healthcare sector, the most immediate application of facial recognition technology is to facilitate patients to check in remotely at doctors and hospitals, thus avoiding the trouble of waiting in line. In addition, this technology can also improve services in many other ways.

2015年来，苹果公司先后发布了两款开源框架——ResearchKit和CareKit，它们可以用来帮助临床试验活动招募病人，并进行远程监测。而杜克大学研究员则借助于这些工具开发出名为Autism & Beyond的应用，让iPhone前置摄像头可以藉此筛查自闭症儿童。

Furthermore, this technology can even be used to extract changes in facial features over time, thereby achieving more futuristic application scenarios. A Google patent published in December 2017 showed that by extracting skin color and skin misalignment, researchers were able to analyze a patient's cardiovascular function.

In 2017, Amazon also obtained a similar patent, which can combine facial feature recognition and heart rate analysis, track color changes in the eye and cheek areas through algorithms, and then use this data to analyze changes in heart rate. After these functions are realized, medical staff will be able to monitor and treat patients more efficiently.

3. Retail

The CB Insights report believes that using facial recognition technology to meet the personalized needs of shoppers will bring huge opportunities to the retail industry.

Facial recognition technology can capture what items shoppers are looking at, allowing retailers to then make targeted recommendations to them via email or online advertising. The report states:

Walmart has a patent for technology that can be used to capture and analyze the facial expressions of customers in line to determine their satisfaction with the shopping experience.

In China, users need to scan a QR code to enter JD.com's offline stores, and cameras running facial recognition algorithms will identify shoppers as they enter. JD.com's physical stores have RFID tags on each item, and consumers can scan the tags of the items they need once when they are about to leave, and the camera will automatically deduct money from their accounts after running the facial recognition program.

If combined with augmented reality technology ( AR ), facial recognition can provide great convenience to many companies, especially beauty brands.

ModiFace, a beauty digital technology company, uses its developed technology to collect different facial features of users, including face shape, skin color, wrinkles, etc. This can help retailers understand what types of products users with different facial features are more likely to buy, so that they can more accurately predict inventory changes.

4. Hotel Industry

The CB Insights report believes that in the hotel industry, the application of facial recognition technology can enable businesses to provide better customer service. Binding this technology to customers' accounts will allow employees to provide them with better and more personalized services. The report wrote:

This technology allows customers to automatically check in when they walk into the hotel lobby. At the same time, customers can also enter their rooms directly through facial recognition, so that the waiter can provide them with more personalized services.

The report mentioned that Marriott International currently has at least two hotels in China that use this technology, allowing guests to check in through facial recognition, a process that takes only one minute. After the check-in process is completed, the room fee is automatically deducted from their account.

5. Marketing and Advertising

Advertising is already becoming more and more accurate, and this will continue to move forward if facial recognition technology is further adopted.

This technology can be used to collect portraits of people who stop to watch ads and enhance the immersive experience of ads. This has been adopted in many activities:

Virgin Mobile already used this in an interactive ad in 2013, where if the viewer blinked, the ad content would play further down.

Italian company Almax has integrated the technology into clothing mannequins, initiating facial scanning if passersby stop to look at the product.

Looking ahead, as facial recognition is added to mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers, it can be used to analyze users' facial expressions, thereby showing different ads based on their emotions.

6. Banking

Banks have already started using facial recognition technology as a tool for users to log in securely on their online banking and apps. Both HSBC and Singapore’s OCBC Bank have introduced facial recognition features in their mobile banking services to facilitate user logins.

The probability of identity recognition errors with this technology is said to be less than one in a million, making online banking more secure.

In addition to protecting online data, this technology has other uses: Spain's CaixaBank uses facial recognition technology on its own ATMs to add an extra layer of security for user logins. With facial scanning, it can eliminate the need to enter a password or even swipe a card, both of which are vulnerable to theft.

As this technology continues to develop and become more widely adopted, it will also make the services provided by bank branches more secure and personalized. Teller staff will be able to know the customer's name and account information more easily, thereby providing a better customer experience.

7. Live events

Last year, a company called Blink Identity received $1.5 million in funding from investors including Live Nation and Techstars Ventures. The company's technology can identify people who evade tickets to events, and the identification process is said to take less than 1 second.

Other recognition technologies are also advancing in this area, making it possible to determine who are VIPs and who just have season tickets.

Of course, this would also require that venues, concert halls and the like be equipped with facial recognition cameras, as well as a certain level of crowd control, including allowing those who have no right to be there in the first place to leave.

8. Social Media/Entertainment

Another application scenario of facial recognition is to eliminate boredom. Applications such as CelebsLike.Me and Google's Art Selfie are widely circulated on social networks. The former can help users find celebrities who look similar to themselves, while the latter can find artworks that match the user's facial features by analyzing the user's selfie.

Snapchat is a pioneer in using facial recognition for personal entertainment, with filters that analyze your face and add makeup or bunny ears to your photos. These tools can also recognize when your mouth is open, adding a dog tongue or a rainbow to your photo.

Snapchat also contributed to the rise of Bitmoji, which in turn inspired Apple to launch Animoji and Memoji. Thanks to the iPhone's Face ID technology, users can create 3D emojis and animations that mimic their own expressions in Apple iMessage.

9. Air travel

Similar to the hotel and entertainment industries, the adoption of facial recognition technology in the air travel industry will also bring about huge changes. Security checks will be accelerated for everyone, and VIP passengers will be able to receive a more personalized service experience.

JetBlue is experimenting with using facial recognition to replace boarding passes to speed up the process, with its service counters using passports or ID photos from a U.S. Customs database to verify passengers and let them board. Last year, Delta also experimented with letting passengers check in their bags at service counters using facial recognition.

Biometrics are also important for airport security. Last fall, a man who tried to enter the United States using a fake passport was detected by facial recognition programs. U.S. Customs officials say the cameras have a 99% accuracy rate in identifying people by comparing facial photos to official documents.