Facial recognition paves way for new shopping experience

World
Europe

Facial recognition is playing a growing role in Chinese society. It's a key element in new security efforts in cities such as Beijing, but the technology is also changing the way people shop.

JD.COM, one of the China’s leading online retailers, has introduced facial recognition in its unmanned stores – one of the latest innovations in China to make shopping as human-less as possible.

How does it work? By signing up for a JD.COM account via your smartphone, of course.

Once you’ve been verified, you get to scan your QR code at the entrance – this is only done once – then you can shop freely.

"After scanning your face, the system is able to determine who you are, what your JD account is and your payment details….when you are leaving, the camera will scan you again and automatically deduct payment from your account," said Zhang Zhitong, a member of the e-commerce giant’s PR team.

China has made it clear that artificial intelligence will be an important part of the economy by 2020, and companies have been scrambling to outdo each other with different technologies.

About 1.4 billion faces are stored on China's national databases, which makes facial recognition a potent tool for security services. But it's in big demand in banking and in retail as well.

Payments are deducted from their accounts as they leave the store. Cameras track customers and scanners track what they're buying, so restocking is more efficient. Labor costs are very low.

So far, JD.COM has six stores using facial recognition. The company is growing more convinced that customers are buying into the idea. It plans to open more and even larger stores in China and, eventually, around the world.