Biometric systems that can “read” a person’s face or palm image and determine if they’re too young for a beer are gaining traction at sports stadiums and liquor stores in the US. While these tools are handy for alcohol sellers — and can offer more privacy for consumers than handing over a driver’s licence to a member of staff — they tap into fears about potential abuses of facial recognition systems. Legislative proposals in NYC and Washington state would let bars, restaurants and other purveyors of adult products verify a customer’s age through biometric data — like a finger or palm image, or a retinal or face scan. - The New York bill would require all biometric data to be encrypted and prohibit businesses from selling it to third parties.
At the same time, biometric ID systems — sold by Amazon, Microsoft, CLEAR and many smaller vendors — are rolling out in real-world locations. - At the Las Vegas Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium, football fans who are enrolled in CLEAR’s ID system — the same one used at US airport security lines — can order Alcohol from their seats using facial recognition on their phone.
- Fans of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks can also use the system at SAP Centre.
- A brewery at Coors Field in Denver — home of baseball’s Colorado Rockies — recently started letting customers wave their palm over a scanner to verify their age instead of handing over a physical ID.
- Those customers must be enrolled in Amazon One’s system — the same one used at Whole Foods.
“No information is ever shared with a partner without your explicit consent,” Sam Hall, chief product officer at CLEAR, stated. - “We put up a screen [on your phone] that says, ‘the Las Vegas Raiders would like to know you’re over 21 — are you okay sharing this information?'”
- “If you click ‘yes,’ they’re able to send a beer over to your seat without you ever having to pull an ID out of your pocket.”
- That’s “way more appealing to most people than passing your license down” a row of stadium seats, he says — and, from the vendors’ perspective, time- and labour-saving.
Some systems require pre-enrolment — which can be done quickly through an app — but others use neural networks to estimate the age of the person looking at the screen at a checkout. - A system called MyCheckr “takes an image of your face, analyses that image, and returns whether or not you’re over the ‘challenge age'” to buy alcohol or cigarettes, explains Andrew O’Brien, product manager at Innovative Technology Ltd., the U.K. company behind it.
- MyCheckr, being used at Bestway Group alcohol stores, uses an algorithm trained by looking at millions of people of various ages.
- It’s a lot more reliable than a store clerk, states O’Brien — and completely anonymous. MyCheckr doesn’t store or transmit any data about the people whose faces it scans.
As these systems grow ubiquitous, there are mounting privacy concerns — despite the assurances — and real issues about racial discrimination. - While letting an underage person get away with buying a drink is a problem, worse still are facial recognition systems that falsely link people to crimes they didn’t commit.
- There’s a movement to Ban facial recognition in stores.
Biometrics are convenient — allowing us to ditch our wallets and open our phones, among other things — and the number of uses is likely to expand. Will be interesting to see who trials this in the UK on premise or indeed the off premise. |
