VisionLabs Technological Partner to Face Pay Moscow Metro Project
Skolkovo Foundation (VEB.RF) resident, VisionLabs company, one of the world leaders in machine learning, became a technological partner to the Face Pay project, which was recently put in place in the Moscow Metro transport system. With the aid of computer vision, passengers can now pay fares through facial recognition without fare cards, bank cards, or phones.
The system underwent testing during the pilot phase from the start of 2021, but today became accessible to all passengers in the metro system. Users must download the Moscow Metro mobile app to activate the service. Then, a few hours before traveling in the underground, you must undergo the following registration procedures – take a selfie, enter bank card data with funds for fare payment, and “Troika” card. The VisionLabs technology encrypts the uploaded facial image into a biometric descriptor, and the system links it to the bank card. Next, the passenger must enter a zone near a ticket barrier marked with a black circle and look at the camera to pay a fare. The recognition process takes 1-2 seconds, after which the ticket barrier opens, and the fare money is taken from the bank card. This method of payment won’t become obligatory – other means of payment will remain.
The Face Pay system recognizes an individual, even with a partially covered face. In addition, VisionLabs is doing a lot of work creating data sets that study neural networks. The company’s technology can therefore withstand external factors and not lose verification accuracy due to medical masks, glasses, and headwear.
Kirill Kaem, senior vice president of innovations at the Skolkovo Foundation:
“Russia has exceptional expertise in the field of information technologies. Areas in artificial intelligence are quickly and successfully developing. Particularly teams that are working in machine learning generally win various international competitions. According to the results of independent tests by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), VisionLabs is among the three global leaders in facial recognition. That is why the company’s solution is used in the biometrics field by the country’s leading financial organizations. And the implementation of the company’s development in the capital’s metro will make Muscovites’ lives easier and more comfortable. The talented VisionLabs team became a Skolkovo resident in 2012 and, in fact, grew with the Foundation. We are pleased to see it become an international leader.”
The new face payment system will help simplify the process at the ticket barrier and speed up queues during peak hours when the number of passengers increases significantly. Passengers no longer have to search for a travel card while causing a queue; Face Pay helps solve this problem. Should there be service difficulties, passengers can write to the metro chatbot in Telegram.
Dmitrii Markov, CEO of VisionLabs: “In smart city infrastructure, facial recognition payment will become an important tool for providing convenient and secure services. Aside from that, during the pandemic, contactless technologies became even more in-demand. VisionLabs has accumulated a large amount of expertise in implementing such projects. Based on our developments, view payment systems at self-service cash points in one hundred and fifty Perekryostok, Pyaterochka, and Magnit stores, Papa John’s pizzerias, and other public spaces.”
Aside from that, using computer vision increases the safety of the payment process. For example, a biometric identifier cannot lose or forget, meaning that it excludes its use by third parties. In addition, liveness algorithms protect from spoofing attacks; these solve the issue of verifying a live person and prevent non-program attacks in the form of masks, images, or phone videos.