Mobile AI tech company SensibleVision has announced its new 3DWALLET technology, designed to let retailers replace card and cash payments with a 3D facial recognition platform.
This is an AI power tool to let brick-and-mortar shops, many of which are in trouble, compete with the digital world when it comes to customer experience. We don’t wait in line when we’re shopping on the Web – and we shouldn’t have to in stores.
– George Brostoff, CEO and co-founder, SensibleVision
With the 3DWALLET technology, payment processors will be able to use mounted 3D cameras to scan shoppers’ faces and determine their identities.
The process instantly connects shoppers to their preferred method of payment, so that the items they select can be automatically billed to them. SensibleVision’s vision is that this will speed up and simplify the purchasing experience, while also providing a level of personal identity protection which will improve the overall security process and help reduce fraudulent transactions.
“The ability to track in-store customer shopping has been around for decades, but the choke point has always been the manual check out process. 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,” said George Brostoff, CEO and co-founder of SensibleVision. “This is an AI power tool to let brick-and-mortar shops, many of which are in trouble, compete with the digital world when it comes to customer experience. We don’t wait in line when we’re shopping on the Web – and we shouldn’t have to in stores.”
He went on to say: “We support a complete ecosystem that is 100% 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.”
‘Selfie pay’ methods have been suggested by several companies over the past few years, but have yet to fully take off. That may be partly due to concerns about accuracy and vulnerability to fraud – photos sold on the dark web alongside other PII could be used to fool the software, while attempts by the UK police to identify individuals in real-time have met with inaccuracy rates of between 90-98%.
However, using 3D images may allay some of these concerns about accuracy, while the smaller and exclusively opt-in database should also reduce false positives. It may not be a practical choice for the tiny fraction of the population with a twin identical enough to fool facial recognition tech, and I don’t doubt that – as with any security measure – criminals will be extremely creative in their attempts to get around it.
But at the very least, it’ll be fascinating to see how SensibleVision’s technology and others like it develop.
