You can pay with your face thanks to brand new Chinese tech!

Now You Can Pay with Your Face

Systems which are able to detect your face are now able to authorise payments, provide people with access to various facilities, and even track down criminals, although this is limited to China currently. The question is, which countries will be following in China’s footsteps?

Face++ is the Billion Dollar Startup Behind it All

Were you to visit the premises of Face++, the Chinese startup estimated to be valued at around a billion US dollars, you would see your face flashing up on a large screen placed near the entrance to the property. You would need to have been added to the database in order to access the site, and if this process had been completed properly, you would be automatically allowed within it.

Your presence on the database would also be used in order to monitor your movements as you made your way through all of the rooms located in the offices. Face++, pronounced as face plus plus, will have your face appear on a number of screens situated throughout the site as the software automatically captures the image from countless angles. One screen, for example, displays software in the process of tracking over 83 different points of an individual’s face at the same time -a little disturbing, but impressive as well!

Convenience and Surveillance Necessitating the Software Expansion

Over the past number of years, computer software has gotten very good at face recognition, and the technology has undergone rapid expansion in China, in the interest of both convenience and surveillance. Face recognition may eventually transform life as we know it, from the way people interact with their banks, the way they do their shopping, the manner in which they accomplish their transportation requirements, and even they way they enjoy real money blackjack online, for example, could alter radically.

Face++ Already Being Used in Several Well-Known Apps

Face++ technology is already present in a number of popular apps: you can transfer money through AliPay, a mobile payment application being used by over 120 million Chinese people, and need only use your face to do so. China’s predominant taxi company, Didi, makes use of Face++ software in order to allow passengers to make sure that the individual behind the car’s wheel is, in fact, the legitimate driver. There is additionally something known as a liveness test, which has been designed in order to prohibit anyone from tricking the software by using a photo. The liveness test will require that those being scanned move their heads or speak while the app is scanning them.

China’s Lax Attitude to Surveillance and Privacy the Reason It’s Taking Off?

The tech figures are taking off in China initially partially because of this country's inhabitants’ attitudes towards privacy and surveillance overall. Unlike the United States of America, for example, China already has a big centralised database of ID photo cards. It’s somewhat dystopian aspect is, however, offset by the fact that criminals could more quickly be apprehended were it to be put to wider use.