Facial Recognition Companies See the Coronavirus as a Business Opportunity
Facial recognition companies are pitching the technology as a sanitary alternative to fingerprint scanners
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The Covid-19 crisis enveloping millions of people around the world is also presenting an unlikely business opportunity for one sector of tech: facial recognition technology. Companies including DERMALOG in Germany and Telpo in China are pitching the technology as a method for identifying individuals without the risk of close contact.
Fingerprint scanners, for instance, require that many people touch the same surface, which could potentially spread infection if someone with Covid-19 were to use an unclean scanner. Businesses in India are being directed by police to ditch fingerprint authentication in lieu of facial recognition or ID cards, and the NYPD is pausing its fingerprint entry amid coronavirus concerns.
Companies eager to make facial recognition the default form of identification are rushing to fill the void.
“In the face of this outbreak, we have developed a solution for noncontact body temperature measurement plus face recognition.”
DERMALOG, a biometrics company that makes fingerprint, iris, and facial recognition hardware, has adapted its technology to determine temperature and is pitching the update as a safety feature. It’s already in use by the Thai government for border control. Telpo is launching temperature-sensing terminals with facial recognition, which allegedly work even if a person is wearing a face mask.
“In the face of this outbreak, we have developed a solution for noncontact body temperature measurement plus face recognition in order to meet the rapid need to diagnose the patient and isolate and control the virus in time,” Crystal Chu, a platform marketing specialist at Telpo, wrote to OneZero in an email.
And the company is touting the benefits of facial recognition beyond the coronavirus pandemic.
“This technology can not only reduce the risk of cross infection but also improve traffic efficiency by more than 10 times, which will save…
