More cities are experimenting with face biometrics in public transportation but the rollouts are proceeding at very different paces.

The following report is by Biometric Update:

The Southern Japanese city of Kumamoto now allows tram passengers to pay with their faces using facial recognition technology from Saffe. The Kumamoto City Transportation Bureau commenced the face payment pilot on December 20, allowing passengers to register through the Quick Ride or Bankit mobile apps. The test will run until the end of March 2024.

Participating in the pilot are R.D.Works, the Japanese sales agent for Saffe’s facial recognition product, Marubeni Corporation and Marubeni Network Solutions (MNETS), Knowledge Creation Technology (KCT), Lecip, and Aplus. Marubeni has previously conducted similar pilots in Toyama and Nagano Prefectures.

Other Japanese cities have been trialing the technology in public transportation, including Osaka.

Kazakhstan’s capital Almaty has also launched a facial recognition payment pilot on its subway in collaboration with Kazakhstan’s largest bank, Halyk Bank, and its software Face Pay.

For now, passengers will be able to use the service through the bank’s mobile app at two stations only. Other stations will be added gradually, Current Time TV reports.

“Security is 100 percent ensured,” says Almaty metro representative Zhazira Baimukhambetova, adding that the passenger information is stored by the bank. “Neither the metro, nor the bank employees, nor the cash desk employees know the passenger’s personal information.”

The Almaty metro transports over 100 thousand people daily. Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries have been boosting investment into biometric technologies, driven by digital government services.

SEE: Kazakhstan Partners With UN To Introduce ‘Digital Family Card,’ Allows The Government To Monitor All Household Conditions And Retroactively Provide Social Benefits

Meanwhile, the Moscow Metro is seeing 150,000 trips paid with biometrics every weekday.

The subway system in the Russian capital has been using a facial recognition system called Face Pay, reaching 320,000 users in May. It has since added a new biometric payment method, allowing select citizens to ride the trains using the Moscow Resident Social Card.

However, the number of Face Pay users seems to be slowing down: Although public transportation authorities predicted that the number of passengers using facial recognition will reach half a million by the end of the year, in its latest release the Moscow Metro says that the number of people paying with biometrics is now at 330,000, just 10,000 more than in May.

The subway system made headlines this year for its biometric surveillance system Sfera, which is used to track activists, journalists and members of the opposition.


AUTHOR COMMENTARY

Yet another obvious step closer towards the mark of the beast.

[16] And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: [17] And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. [18] Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Revelation 13:16-18

[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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