Baidu is bringing facial recognition technology to Beijing Capital International Airport for passenger identification.
The technology is already being tested by airport staff in an access control application for secure areas, but will ultimately be used to identify passengers as they move through airport screening. Baidu says that as early as next year, facial recognition could replace boarding passes at the airport.
The project reflects a growing enthusiasm for biometric airport screening around the world, with the US Customs and Border Protection agency helping to lead the way with an expanding facial recognition program that is already active at multiple American airports. For China, the Beijing Airport project represents a convenient and contactless step forward from a fingerprint-based biometric border security program launched this past February.
Baidu, for its part, has already seen some high-profile deployments of its facial recognition technology in the country. Last year, a major theme park replaced visitor passes with Baidu facial recognition, and at the start of this year Baidu got some media attention with a KFC collaboration that used face biometrics to produce tailored menu recommendations based on customer demographics. But given that Beijing’s main airport served 94.39 million travellers last year, this deployment should offer Baidu’s technology a much larger impact.
Sources: South China Morning Post, China Money Network
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August 24, 2017 – by Alex Perala
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