To ride the metro in the Henan capital of Zhengzhou, all you need is your face.
Face recognition scanners have now been added to every single one of the city’s subways stations allowing commuters to forego the use of metro cards and even QR code mobile phone scans, which had only recently become the big thing in transportation convenience.
Instead, commuters can register an account via the metro’s official app and get their identity and face verified. Then, all it takes is one second for a subway turnstile scanner to scan their faces and let them in while deducting the fare via a pre-set payment method.
Zhengzhou Metro first started testing out this system in September on its Line 1. Almost 200,000 passengers have now signed up for the service with 10,000 using it each day.
While Zhengzhou is the first city in China to add face recognition scanners to all of its metro stations, subway networks in a number of other Chinese cities, like Guangzhou, Nanjing, and Shenzhen, have already been experimenting with the technology.
China, of course, is obsessed with face recognition tech, using it to address a wide range of issues while spooking some over privacy and other concerns. The country upped the ante earlier this month when a new regulation came into effect mandating that all those signing up for new mobile phone contracts must have their faces scanned.
