Smile-to-pay - facial payment technology in China

[hatshepsut93]

There's like 100% chance that China is doing this to harvest even more data for their facial-recognition surveillance system, currently they mostly rely on camera, but this payment method would allow them to get accurate daily data for users tied to all their KYC data. I won't be surprised if this facial payments comes with some incentives like cashback, better deals on loans, higher credit score and so on.

[1715309188]

1715309188

[bitbunnny]

There's like 100% chance that China is doing this to harvest even more data for their facial-recognition surveillance system, currently they mostly rely on camera, but this payment method would allow them to get accurate daily data for users tied to all their KYC data. I won't be surprised if this facial payments comes with some incentives like cashback, better deals on loans, higher credit score and so on.

Yes, this could be the case. It's the clever way how to get dara from people offering them different convenient services. Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable with facial payment system.
And it would be interesting to know for how long and in what purposes would authorities keep that data.  In.Europe because of GDPR something like that wouldn't be possible.

[Argoo]

China is taking the social credit system to a new level. Now they would have all money and loans on their face. The own face would be the private key for their wallet. It would be super easy unless people find a way to use others face. I hope they soon integrate a chip in every Chinese to be safe of face copying scam.

Let's see how successful such a new recognition technology will be. She, of course, is very interesting. However, anyone who takes your device by force and brings it to your face will completely manage your money. Imagine walking, getting hit in the face or on the head, and when you wake up, you find that all the money from your account has been withdrawn. I don’t know, of course, the level of security depends on the country of residence, but I would not risk having such a way of controlling my wallet.

[Ausgewielt]

This is a very good technological development. Restaurant and other retail shop customers will be excited with this technology. I think if there is some cryptocurrency bussiness related developer can make this technology, then many investors will be interested with it. Megvii with it's face++ technology that used by alibaba raised $150 million dollars from the investors. Cryptocurrency related developers have to create similar technology. I am sure that it will be good for cryptocurrency adoption.

[Kakmakr]

find someone that uses face recognition, go to their social media, point camera at their picture and your in.
imagine your face as a password.. then imagine a password tattood to your forehead for anyone to take a pic of and you realise how insecure it is

Nah, I do not think that will work, because facial recognition software use a special software to scan the face with millions of dots to create a 3D map of the face. A picture has no debt and if you read more about this, you will see that they actually require you to turn your head, so it will detect if the source is a flat picture or if it is a real person.  

Technology like Bio metric fingerprint scanners can even detect if you are using a finger that was detached, so technology are improving and they will detect if you are trying to fool it.  

[LuckyBtc]

Technology sure is moving fast in China, The same will make easier to target people or gather tons of data. There's even facial recognized waste collection there, Which opens to only registered faces and has some reward or point system, It's nuts! I wouldn't sign-ups for that shit, I prefer to use password or finger print (Only if necessary), I want privacy and security more than convenience.

[DooMAD]

It must be horrific enough to be involved in an accident or an attack where you suffer a facial deformity and require reconstructive surgery, but how much worse would it be if your whole identity relied on the success of that surgery?  It's a stupid idea.  Look at the recent rise in things like "acid attacks".  How much more prevalent and damaging would those be if it becomes a prerequisite for our face to look the same just to spend our money?

find someone that uses face recognition, go to their social media, point camera at their picture and your in.

I'm not defending this smile-to-pay thing, but I don't think it's this easily exploitable. As far as I know(not sure, don't quote me on this), most decent facial recognition systems take note of the sort of "depths" of a certain face. So chances are that simply using a photo of a person won't do the job.

True enough, but with the advances being made in 3D printing, it probably won't be too long before someone could conceivably print out a realistic mask to wear.  A simple photo still likely wouldn't be sufficient to generate the mapping for it, but how would you even know if you were being filmed/scanned as you walked into a building, for example?

[Odonko]

Well i hope the government does not manipulate the use of this technology and pry on the people of China nevertheless it's an amazing technology paying for purchases with your face lol.

[BitHodler]

I'm not defending this smile-to-pay thing, but I don't think it's this easily exploitable. As far as I know(not sure, don't quote me on this), most decent facial recognition systems take note of the sort of "depths" of a certain face. So chances are that simply using a photo of a person won't do the job.

That would require extra cameras or infrared sensors driven by AI. My smartphone for example has an infrared laser it uses to measure dept up to a certain distance, which in this case would confirm your point.

If you however have a lower end smartphone with an ordinary camera, there isn't going to be a capability of depth measurement, which makes manipulation obviously easier.

I am still shocked by how many people use their latest smartphone models in combination with facial recognition. My smartphone has that option too, but I simply use an old fashion swipe-to-unlock feature.

I'm not even using the fingerprint scanner. I'm too paranoid to use these features.

[ene1980]

So, do you think this is a truly revolutionary payment option or is this just an extension of the Chinese surveillance goals? Now, you cannot deny that you made a payment or that you were involved in a payment, because every face is unique.

There is no doubt that it is a truly revolutionary development to incorporate facial recognition to payment but every technology has its negative points if the team behind it start misusing it. There is a paranoia that every Chinese technology use their platform to collect data and there are some truth in that too as most of the companies are funded by the government and they will have some stake in that due to their dictator reign.

[bryant.coleman]

Even digital payment applications with advanced security measures are getting hacked, and these people are talking about making payments with facial recognition. I guess the Russian hackers will be very happy after hearing this news. Technology is not that advanced to allow facial recognition, especially in sync with payments. It is not error-free and prone to mistakes. I have no issues if they want to use facial recognition on top of the already existing mechanisms. But using facial recognition alone can be very risky. I would say that we are at least 10 years away from using this sort of technology. It can be used along with finger-print reading or retina scan.

[anoufal]

I think facial payment technology is a bad idea. And hopefully no one will use it everywhere

[mirakal]

There's always a bad side and good side of every technology, you are tend to emphasize here more the bad side which you are correct, they can always use this for surveillance, same with what is the government is doing to us, but that's the trend now, people usually value the convenience over the possible risk.

I'm not familiar with this technology but this will surely be more successful due to the convenience it will bring.
People would think it's cool but those who have enough knowledge and are curious on the negative side, they sure will study the bad side, and might adopt.
Well, as for me, I'm still with crypto being anonymous although we can't seem to enjoy that in the long run.

[Abusadeeq]

i think is another development to the technology, facial technology has help alots in term of security but not up to our expectations. its add to the procedure of security. privacy matters alot, but if its worth the transparency everyone can engage in smile-to-pay technological payment

[Lucius]

The concept to pay with your face is nice, but as you said... what happens if identical twins use this feature? Would it also "verify" your account, if you use a facial mold of someone else's face, like they do in the movies with makeup?   

Maybe this technology is not perfect, but it won't be until it's widely used so that any defects can be corrected. This is the case with every relatively new technology, and someone is probably work on this for last 10 years since it was available at that time. Abuse opportunities certainly exist and they are realistic, but i believe there is some kind of insurance in such cases. Maybe same as someone steal your card (PIN) and withdraw money on ATM, bank will need proof that abuse had occurred, and the damaged user will be compensated.

I think this technology is most aimed at encouraging users to spend more money in "easy way" by offering something completely new and "secure". All you need is your smiling face, forget on cards, PINs or cash

[Kakmakr]

It must be horrific enough to be involved in an accident or an attack where you suffer a facial deformity and require reconstructive surgery, but how much worse would it be if your whole identity relied on the success of that surgery?  It's a stupid idea.  Look at the recent rise in things like "acid attacks".  How much more prevalent and damaging would those be if it becomes a prerequisite for our face to look the same just to spend our money?

find someone that uses face recognition, go to their social media, point camera at their picture and your in.

I'm not defending this smile-to-pay thing, but I don't think it's this easily exploitable. As far as I know(not sure, don't quote me on this), most decent facial recognition systems take note of the sort of "depths" of a certain face. So chances are that simply using a photo of a person won't do the job.

True enough, but with the advances being made in 3D printing, it probably won't be too long before someone could conceivably print out a realistic mask to wear.  A simple photo still likely wouldn't be sufficient to generate the mapping for it, but how would you even know if you were being filmed/scanned as you walked into a building, for example?

Well, nothing stops people from going for a re-scan to "update" the database with their "new" facial features. They will possibly have some kind of alternative recognition method to help with situations like this. Examples : Retina scans or finger print scans etc.

My main concern is with the Muslim women that has to cover their faces at all time... how will they pay for services and goods, if this is going to be the only payment option. According to a study in 2015, Islam has 1.8 billion adherents, making up about 24.1% of the world population. (Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country) <--- Not all of them are women, but it is still a very high percentage of people that would not be able to use this system. 

[mazdafunsun]

This will become new normal for Chinese people.
Their privacy is no more, they already have mass surveillance and everything about them is recorded ,saved and used.
So there is no if difference if they have payments with their faces in addition to surveillance ,

The rest of the developed world will not allow this, privacy is too important.

[Slow death]

in my opinion this is the most important part of the article:

The software is already widely used, often to monitor citizens. But authorities have come under fire for using it to crack down and monitor dissent, particularly in the surveillance-heavy region of Xinjiang.

so everything remains the same for Chinese citizens, they may have a lot of technology, but they also have little freedom. What good is having a lot of technology and having little freedom? I prefer not to have a lot of technology but to have my freedom. I don't think this news is good for the people of china. honestly freedom is something that has no price

[shoreno]

This will become new normal for Chinese people.
Their privacy is no more, they already have mass surveillance and everything about them is recorded ,saved and used.
So there is no if difference if they have payments with their faces in addition to surveillance ,

The rest of the developed world will not allow this, privacy is too important.

in the new world everything is now advanced . it all started with smartphones . smartphone now have a fingerprint scanner and a selfie recognition that can act as a password  . chinese have gotten that idea and now implement it on more uses such as for paying  but technologies like this are not only present on china  . ive seen a simmilar service before on our country  .

where there is an app/wallet that you can use to pay and you can include selfies ,videos and or other personal files   .

[todiboa]

I want to express my opinion. Don't you think that all these technologies are supposedly that aimed at simplifying everyday business like unlocking a phone or paying for services, are making people subservient or even slaves? Thanks to technologies like “Smile-to-Pay” or FaceID, people are degrading, making themselves a bunch of experimental subjects run by large companies or authorities.

I am glad that despite this progress, people realized at least that banks are manipulating everyone and are starting to abandon their services in favor of crypto. I hope that this will also be the case with technologies like “Smile-to-Pay” or FaceID, and people will prefer some developments and technologies based on blockchain or smth like that of being really safe from manipulation.