Moscow: You can now pay using facial recognition in the metro

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Metro station in Moscow: The new system is called Face Pay

Photo: NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP

Those who use the metro in Moscow have also been able to pay using facial recognition since Friday: the Russian capital has started to introduce the controversial technology in local transport.

"To get on the metro, passengers don't need a card or a smartphone, they just have to look at the camera at the turnstile," said the deputy mayor responsible for traffic, Maxim Lixutow.

Mayor Sergej Sobjanin also advertised the new system on Twitter, which can be used at more than 240 stations.

He wrote that if you wanted to take part, you had to upload your photo and also link your bank card and Troika card - a card for trips on public transport - to the new system via an app.

Sobyanin states that Moscow is the first city in the world to introduce the payment method called Face Pay on such a scale.

The technology is new and complex, and they want to continue working on improving it.

The Moscow authorities expect Face Pay to be used by ten to 15 percent of passengers in the next two to three years.

If interest increases, more and more turnstiles will be equipped with the technology, says Maxim Lixutow.

But he also emphasized that the registration for paying by facial recognition is voluntary.

Previous alternatives would continue to be offered.

The authorities hope Face Pay will speed up operations in Moscow's extensive metro system.

They also promised that the data would be encrypted and that the camera would only recognize a “biometric key”, not the passenger's face.

Photos that citizens make available for services such as Face Pay should not be passed on to the police, it also said.

Civil rights activists warn of the new system

Face recognition technologies have expanded rapidly in Russia in recent years.

Dozens of Moscow supermarkets can already be used for face-to-face payments.

Facial recognition was also used by the authorities to enforce lockdown measures.

Human rights activists therefore warn against increasing use of the technology, they fear more state surveillance of citizens in the long term.

"This is a dangerous new step in Russia's quest for control over its people," said Stanislav Shakirov, founder of the civil rights group Roskomsvoboda, according to The Guardian newspaper.

"We are approaching authoritarian countries like China, which have already mastered the use of facial recognition technology." According to Shakirov, the Moscow Metro is a state institution, so he believes that all data could end up in the hands of the security services.

Face recognition technology has been controversial for years in the EU and the US.

In Germany, for example, a test of the technology for monitoring purposes at the Südkreuz train station in Berlin caused a stir nationwide.

Read a detailed article on the increasing importance of facial recognition databases here.

mbö / AFP