China was the first country to implement face recognition at the government level. The measure was aimed at tracking down those who break the law and developing a social reliability ranking. The face recognition system will soon be implemented in Russia. It will operate in shopping malls and be used for obtaining data on the age and gender of customers and their customer behavior.
The technology belongs to WatcomGroup that partnered with NtechLab, developer of the ill-famous FinFace service that uses people’s faces to identify their Vkontakte accounts. Development of a solution that fits the purposes of shopping malls may cost between RUR 30 mio ($455.7K) and RUR 100 mio ($1.56 mio), Kommersant reports. The basic version costs RUR 15 mio ($228K).
It is expected that the face recognition system will allow determining how many customers make recurring visits as well as counting the total number of customers. Stores will be able to conduct more accurate marketing research and monitor their employees.