Roommatik, a Spanish company that makes check-in kiosks for hotels, is testing new facial identification technology from Gradiant known as FaceIDNN.
“It is very important for hotels to verify the identity of guests at the moment of the entry, in fact, they are required by the police to do that. So, facial recognition is a very useful functionality of our product to our customers,” says Roommatik representative Cristina García.
A camera in the kiosk scans the user’s face and compares it to a photo on an ID card, driver’s licence or passport that can be uploaded during the reservation process or at the point of check-in. Once the match is confirmed, the kiosk can dispense a key card or regular key for the guest’s room.
Roommatik says it believes the service will be particularly useful for small hotels, hostels and apartments that may not staff their reception desks around the clock. The company expects to offer the facial recognition technology as an optional service for its kiosk by the summer.
According to research by PhocusWire, facial recognition technology is going mainstream: Apple added it to its iPhone X, MasterCard is using it to verify mobile payments, conferences are adopting it to expedite registration and travel companies are using it to provide secure, seamless processing of their customers.
