Facial Recognition…New to Apple, Not for Us!

The recent announcement by Apple to include facial recognition within their latest iPhone X has caused quite a bit of excitement. Facial recognition is a much faster and easier way to unlock a smart phone and is very difficult to replicate. It removes the worries behind using alphanumeric codes that can be guessed, lost or even stolen.

While this is a hot topic in the personal device spectrum, the latest version of the InVentry sign in system has had facial recognition built into it for some time now.

If you have frequent visitors coming and going from your school you can speed up the sign in process by utilising facial recognition. Once a visitor logs their face with the system it will automatically remember them they next time they visit – all they do is walk up to the screen, look at the camera and they are automatically signed in.

The way Apple’s facial recognition system works is not too dissimilar to ours. The Apple system relies on its TrueDepth camera system. The technology features seven sensors and machine learning algorithms that measure and learn facial features. The InVentry facial recognition systems works in a similar way. The camera, which is inbuilt into the sign in system, measures the distance between key facial points. It learns what these are and combines them to create a unique identity reference for each individual. With the InVentry system it will also check to make sure that it is the correct person. All processing is done on the device, alleviating the concern around sensitive information being passed to the cloud.

facial recognition

Facial recognition is just another form of biometric technology, the same as fingerprint technology. Fingerprint technology is now available as part of our sign in offering. Schools are adopting fingerprint technology because:

  • it eliminates the ability for people­ to sign in and out for others
  • it completely removes the expense of issuing and replacing ID cards
  • sign in information cannot be guessed, lost or stolen
  • they can utilise their existing ID suite for integration across platforms e.g. cashless catering.

With the rise in biometric technology now spanning beyond fingerprints and into facial recognition, the introduction of this type of technology on consumer devices such as the Apple iPhone will make everyone more aware and comfortable around it. And whilst we accept it won’t happen overnight, it will eventually become the norm in schools and education in general. Could this mean that ID cards for staff are a thing of the past and late arriving pupils only need to present themselves at a screen to sign in?