Smile-to-pay - facial payment technology in China

[Mpamaegbu]

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.

Are you sure about the sentence I bolded in your comment? Because for me the Chinese all look like identical twins. Again, the population of China gives her the strong advantage to consume whatever she produces and this population is in billions, not millions.

[bitart]

So, do you think this is a truly revolutionary payment option or is this just an extension of the Chinese surveillance goals?

...
it is surely interesting though i am curious to know how accurate it is and how many bugs it has. for example whath appens if you grow facial hair like a mustache or a full beard, will you lose access to your money

This was my first thought too, exactly

Or, women will do a new makeup in the morning with a new style to the eyes, and they won't be able to pay with their phones because of the face recognition...

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

Fingerprint, faceID, anything biometric... these are the things you should use as a kind of username and not as a password...
If you start the payment with some biometric thing and you have to input your password or PIN, it could be secure enough... But if you can just authorize a payment with something biometric... a bit scary...

Why?
What happens if you forget your  password? Or hackers gain access to it? Or somehow you expose it? No worry, you set up a new password and voilá, you're fine
But what happens if somehow your biometric data (fingerprint, etc...) leaks out and a hacker gains access to it? You just can't change your fingerprint (at least easily... ), and you're in trouble...

[hermawan9416]

Smile-to-pay doesn't seem safe to me. Quite the contrary

[barbara44]

I have seen technologies like this in movies and I have seen how people have even used it against the owner, although the crime rate that would be involved with facial recognition cannot be as high as that of finger print, codes, password and the rest.

Facial recognition may still be risky, but it could actually be the best, because it would be impossible to clone the face, and the highest a criminal can do is to force the person to use it against his will which may not be much common, and you would not tell me that people would cut people's head just to get it done, where would they carry the head to and how would they do that without being notice.

I think facial recognition would really be a nice solution, but they should never make it like the only thing that would be relied on, it should still have another form of verification along with it.

[dessyhodin97]

a step forward in tech progress

[NewBet]

I heard that China has such a advanced facial technology that even their CCTV cameras use it. When you commit a crime in China, a simple crime like jaywalking, the CCTV cameras can see who you are and automatically issue you a fine without any questions asked. They don't even need police officers, it is done automatically with artificial intelligence and facial recognition.

[dimastegar]

And it has become a natural thing if face recognition is used as an alternative payment ID. Just like our fingerprints that have different shapes, our faces are also different from each other.

[Wexnident]

I reckon many people have seen the latest “Smile-to-Pay” facial payment technology that are introduced in China. Large companies like, Tencent is using this in their popular WeChat app and other companies like Alipay are spending millions to develop their own technology like this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/04/smile-to-pay-chinese-shoppers-turn-to-facial-payment-technology

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.

Will the millions of people in China blindly adopt this technology, because these platforms are widely used already or will they opt for something a bit more anonymous like Bitcoin? <The Chinese people are very disciplined, so I think they would just bend the knee again and go for facial recognition.>

The convenience is also a big factor, just imagine leaving your home to go shopping without a wallet or anything to remember... you just take a product or pay for a service by looking into a camera and you pay with your face. 

Let's discuss.

It's a really nice step towards progress and security though. Adding facial recognition to fingerprints can really help secure bank accounts and such. But it's also bothering at times since like every transaction you make, your face is recorded and basically every company now has your face. They can use that then to basically gather information about you and stuff like that. Well, facebook almost does that at the same time since you use your face as your profile pic at the same time, but that has your guarantee and you can adjust privacy settings to whom can see it and such. On the other hand, once the pic gets to the company, you don't really have control anymore as to where it goes to.

[Kakmakr]

I heard that China has such a advanced facial technology that even their CCTV cameras use it. When you commit a crime in China, a simple crime like jaywalking, the CCTV cameras can see who you are and automatically issue you a fine without any questions asked. They don't even need police officers, it is done automatically with artificial intelligence and facial recognition.

Well come to think of it, most countries use number plate recognition to issue traffic fines for traffic offenses, so it is not unlikely for this to transition to face recognition to target people without number plates. The UK are covered with very advances CCTV cameras and they use face recognition software to identify possible criminals in high risk areas.

CCTV and face recognition software are being improved at a rapid pace, so it is not unrealistic that these cameras would be used as a payment method in the future. 

[Woshib]

If we will talk about China, they will adopt for sure this Facial technology, they have no choice, but the more important thing and thats what makes me confused, why we always have fear from the government?                                 
why always try to hide our spending and that fear of taxes, why we can't use our hard-earned money as we want? no fear no doubt no tears.                                 

[Lalafell]

I reckon many people have seen the latest “Smile-to-Pay” facial payment technology that are introduced in China. Large companies like, Tencent is using this in their popular WeChat app and other companies like Alipay are spending millions to develop their own technology like this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/04/smile-to-pay-chinese-shoppers-turn-to-facial-payment-technology

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.

Will the millions of people in China blindly adopt this technology, because these platforms are widely used already or will they opt for something a bit more anonymous like Bitcoin? <The Chinese people are very disciplined, so I think they would just bend the knee again and go for facial recognition.>

The convenience is also a big factor, just imagine leaving your home to go shopping without a wallet or anything to remember... you just take a product or pay for a service by looking into a camera and you pay with your face. 

Let's discuss.

Smile-to-Pay: Chinese Shoppers Turn to Facial Payment Technology. China is embracing facial payment technology, which allows consumers to purchase goods simply by posing in front of point-of-sale (POS) machines equipped with cameras after linking an image of their face to a digital payment system or bank account. For me, since you can copy a face of a person by prosthetic and make ups,  I think it would turn into a disaster or much bigger problem since it only recognize the face of a person and today it is easily copy a face of a person.

[timerland]

I've actually seen so much changes in China over the past years of going there on vacation, back 4-5 years ago, there was no one who used these payment systems like Wechat Pay, Alipay, Smile to pay, etc. China has advanced so much in the recent years, and it's said to see the Finance system they've built up over the past couple of years but then not be accepting of blockchain tech.

There aren't a lot of security risk I think, you can only use smile to pay for small payments (like a meal), and it's pretty good face recognition and needs to detect movements from you, which makes it even better.

[blckhawk]

It's great to see innovations but having facial recognition for something that should be secure such as payment should have a robust way of recognizing different faces. Faces in China are quite similar to each other and I beleive it can be exploited even with the use of 3D map sensors. Fingerprint is more secure and more difficult to duplicate than faces when faces can have similarities, especially when twins. However, in your argument that the Chinese government adds it for their surveillance, it's no different from other big companies, social media platforms, or other governments.

[Genemind]

China's technology is too advanced and they're always open to adopt the latest technology method. Facial recognition payment could assure the security of each transaction. However, I'm still sure that there will be lapses and errors using this method. I would still prefer the usual way of payment. I believe that this kind of method would be more popular and other countries would also implement it.

[Magkirap]

I reckon many people have seen the latest “Smile-to-Pay” facial payment technology that are introduced in China. Large companies like, Tencent is using this in their popular WeChat app and other companies like Alipay are spending millions to develop their own technology like this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/04/smile-to-pay-chinese-shoppers-turn-to-facial-payment-technology

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.

Will the millions of people in China blindly adopt this technology, because these platforms are widely used already or will they opt for something a bit more anonymous like Bitcoin? <The Chinese people are very disciplined, so I think they would just bend the knee again and go for facial recognition.>

The convenience is also a big factor, just imagine leaving your home to go shopping without a wallet or anything to remember... you just take a product or pay for a service by looking into a camera and you pay with your face. 

Let's discuss.

I never thought it would be for surveillance until you mention it. It has a big chance that it will be use to collect data from people like what other mobile app are doing. This was good when you fist hear given that you will just smile to pay, it was very convinient but there is a chance that they are just collecting information. On the other hand, using other payment method such as crypto or specifically bitcoin which provides anonymous features. As we all know transactions happening in crypto world makes you anonymous and that is what most of us wanted.

[South Park]

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.

I agree, while every technology has the potential to be harmful if used with that purpose, I do not see anything positive about technologies like that, the supposed convenience they bring is very limited and the harmful effects are too big to ignore, paying with cash was the norm a few decades ago and people simply decided they did not wanted to carry a few bills in their pocket and instead carried a credit card, and now they want to get rid of the credit card and link your ability to make purchases with your face, at that point how long it will take for governments to ban all transactions except those in which you need to identify yourself?

[Astvile]

This is somehow the same type of payment I saw maybe in Europe I guess if I correctly remember, they are using chips implanted to their body connected to a wallet app you just need to tap your wrist to approve the payment. This is quite the same and would be beneficial for us all specially in security terms where you don't even need to memorize your pin and bring some cards you just need yourself alone.

[uray]

Smile-to-pay doesn't seem safe to me. Quite the contrary

Every technology will have a negative aspect too but you have to think bigger, if companies are coming up with solutions that will make things better for the human civilization, so be it and i know there are many problems that will arise including privacy issues as these technologies will be used in other sectors as well to monitor people by the government. Where do we balance these will be always a big question.

[Alexandr Kirichenko]

I have seen technologies like this in movies and I have seen how people have even used it against the owner, although the crime rate that would be involved with facial recognition cannot be as high as that of finger print, codes, password and the rest.

Facial recognition may still be risky, but it could actually be the best, because it would be impossible to clone the face, and the highest a criminal can do is to force the person to use it against his will which may not be much common, and you would not tell me that people would cut people's head just to get it done, where would they carry the head to and how would they do that without being notice.

I think facial recognition would really be a nice solution, but they should never make it like the only thing that would be relied on, it should still have another form of verification along with it.

And what if a program like Face App somehow will applied. Already a lot of articles came out about how with this program people become victims of fraud. Will this technology recognize such things?

[ene1980]

And what if a program like Face App somehow will applied. Already a lot of articles came out about how with this program people become victims of fraud.
Will this technology recognize such things?

If you are not careful enough on what you do and what hardware you use or what software you are using, then your privacy will be at risk, every application you download will have a backdoor to your hardware as you are giving them permission to capture all the details regarding you. This is not the case with one application, it is the case with each and every application you use in your mobile phone and computer.
People who are interested in facial payment will use those and you have the choice whether you want any of these technologies.