Students at Istanbul University have developed a facial recognition attendance application designed to replace traditional paper signature lists. The pilot will run this academic year in the Management Information Systems department of the Faculty of Economics, according to Hürriyet Daily News.
How the App Works
The app, named “ATTN,” was created by a five-person student team led by Thaer Alodeh, with Abdullah Gökalp Çıray, Muhammed İbrahim Kaya, Orhan Efe Kocaoğlu, and Efe Baydemir. Developed as a course project, it offers three verification options that instructors can select based on class needs: a simple login suitable for remote sessions, a same Wi-Fi network requirement to confirm classroom presence, and live facial recognition for the highest level of assurance.
Enrollment is based on photos already stored in the university system, while live frames used during checks are not retained. The developers report that the app can log 1,650 concurrent users in around 12 minutes, with individual checks taking about 10 seconds and accuracy approaching 99 percent.
Scope and Goals of the Pilot
The trial will cover around 120 students taught by 10 academics in the Management Information Systems program. The system is intended to save class time, prevent proxy attendance through forged signatures, and encourage in-person participation. If successful, the developers plan to extend the system to other faculties, universities, and private preparatory schools, citing early interest from both domestic and international institutions.
Privacy and Governance
According to the student team, participation in facial recognition checks is controlled at the course level by instructors, with flexibility to select from the three assurance tiers. Live facial images are used only for verification and are not stored. This approach, as reported, aims to limit data handling concerns, though no separate data protection impact assessment has been published.
Broader Context
The Istanbul University pilot adds to a growing list of educational deployments of biometric attendance tools. In May, schools in Sindh, Pakistan introduced a facial recognition attendance app for K-12 classrooms. More recently, Bharathiar University in India implemented a biometric attendance system for staff under state directives. Other international use cases include access control via facial recognition at the University of Waikato’s Chinese campus, though not specifically for attendance.
The launch also comes as Turkey explores broader applications of digital identity, including plans to integrate blockchain into its national ID system.
Source: Hürriyet Daily News
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
