FacePhi Pivots to ‘e-Football Technology’ With Venue Access Project

“Football is pure emotion, and the experience in the stadium is irreplaceable, but modern clubs must try to take care of their fans in many other details, starting with the accessibility of their digital spaces and the facilities when using their tickets.” – Javier Mira, CEO, FacePhi

Spain-based selfie onboarding specialist FacePhi has made its debut in the world of sports, announcing a new venue access solution for the Valencia CF soccer stadium in FacePhi’s home country.

The project represents a novel use of FacePhi’s biometric onboarding technology. The company has won considerable business in the financial services sector in particular thanks to its remote enrollment solution, which prompts the end user to upload a selfie together with images of an official identity document, and uses facial recognition to match them.

Now, this approach has been adapted to get Valencia CF fans into their stadium. Fans can upload their selfie photos and ID images to the Valencia CF app to confirm their identity; then, at the stadium, they can take a selfie scan to produce a QR code, which is then presented to a QR code reader at the stadium entrance to gain access.

The innovative solution was developed in partnership with the VCF Innovation Hub and Startup Valencia, with FacePhi CEO Javier Mire expressing enthusiasm about this kind of “e-football technology”.

“Football is pure emotion, and the experience in the stadium is irreplaceable, but modern clubs must try to take care of their fans in many other details, starting with the accessibility of their digital spaces and the facilities when using their tickets,” he explained in a statement announcing the venue access system.

The Valencia CF project helps to illustrate the continuing dynamism of FacePhi, and of the booming selfie biometrics market more broadly. In its report for the 2020 fiscal year, FacePhi revealed that it had doubled its staff and attained a 69 percent increase in contracts.

The Valencia project will also help to burnish FacePhi’s reputation in its home country after the company won the National SME of the Year Award in February.

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June 3, 2021 – by Alex Perala