If you’re tired of waiting in checkout lines at the grocery store, department store, gas station or any other brick-and-mortar merchant, a technological advancement in the works may be good news for you.
Facial recognition technology is coming to your credit card—meaning your face may actually be your credit card in the near future. SensibleVision, a company that develops artificial intelligence technology around the globe, has announced a new 3DWallet tool, which connects with payment methods and automatically identifies customers, charging them for their purchases with a glance at their face.
An end to checkout lines
Imagine checking out at the store simply by having your face scanned. No more waiting, no more lines. George Brostoff, CEO and co-founder of SensibleVision, says that while “the ability to track in-store customer shopping has been around for decades,” the manual checkout process was always a stumbling block.
However, he explains, “Today’s shoppers are used to instant online purchases, and physical retailers should be able to offer exactly the same level of convenience while making the process even more secure than with credit cards.”
Brostoff believes that brick-and-mortar shops are suffering next to online retailers. “We don’t wait in line when we’re shopping on the Web—and we shouldn’t have to in stores.”
With 3DWallet, mounted cameras scan shoppers’ faces and identify them, instantly connecting them to their preferred payment method and automatically billing their selected items to them. Their authentication process is designed to improve on current payment security measures and protect consumers from fraudulent transactions.
A higher level of security, plus increased convenience
While this might be bad news for parents who are in the habit of sending their teenagers to the store with their credit card, it’s good news for anyone who’s ever had their credit card hacked and had to deal with disputing charges that they didn’t make.
Brostoff stresses that people will not be charged for things they are not ready to buy and also that no one will be scanned without their permission. “We support a complete ecosystem that is 100 percent opt-in. This is what facial recognition should be—a way to make life easier for people by eliminating the roadblocks to seamless user experiences.
Tags: