The company behind the technology says it can make sure people aren’t using photos or videos to trick the scanner.
Forget cash, credit cards or a smartphone — customers can now settle the bill with their face thanks to new technology unveiled on Friday.
Ant Financial, an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA, Tech30) , launched the new service in the eastern city of Hangzhou. It’s the latest example of the growing use of facial recognition by businesses and government agencies in the world’s most populous nation.
Diners at the restaurant, a KFC brand in China known as KPro, place their order at a terminal, which then scans their face. If it matches the image on the photo ID stored in the system, the customer only has to enter their phone number and the payment goes through. (Their food is still served by a regular human.)
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The system is based on Ant Financial’s digital payment platform Alipay, which has more than half a billion users worldwide and already allows people to sign into its Chinese app using their face.
Ant says the KFC restaurant is the first physical store in the world to use facial recognition software to take payments.
The company is eager to reassure consumers that the technology is secure. The software analyzes more than 600 facial features to make a match, and uses a 3D camera and a “liveness” algorithm to make sure people aren’t trying to fool it with photos or videos of someone else.
