Fujitsu Delivers Cashless, Contactless Retail Experience for Masked Shoppers with Hygienic, Multi-Factor Biometric Authentication Technology

By STS News Desk On Jan 21, 2021

Fujitsu-Delivers-Cashless_-Contactless-Retail-Experience-for-Masked-Shoppers-with-Hygienic_-Multi-Factor-Biometric-Authentication-Technology

Fujitsu Laboratories, Ltd. has announced the development of a new multi-factor biometric authentication technology to deliver an innovative shopping experience for the “New Normal” era, combining non-contact biometrics that filter the verification target through facial data with identification performed via palm vein recognition.

This technology enables identification with greater than 99% accuracy even when the user wears a mask, and will be showcased at a concept cashless Lawson convenience store at the Fujitsu Technology Square office in Shin-Kawasaki, Japan (1), for a field trial starting from January 2021.

Development Background

In recent years, the use of biometric authentication technologies has been increasing, including in areas like the processing of payments at brick-and-mortar stores and in ID verification for events. Now, these technologies also promise to help limit the spread of COVID-19 by limiting human contact during transactions and verification processes.

To this end, Fujitsu is accelerating the introduction of contactless user interfaces for authentication leveraging facial and palm vein recognition with a variety of field trials over the past year (Fig. 1).

Challenges

In many parts of the world, mask-wearing has been highlighted by health officials as an important tool to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases like the COVID-19 virus. However, when face authentication is performed while wearing a mask, most of the face is hidden, and the accuracy of this method can sometimes deteriorate. With this in mind, Fujitsu has worked to improve the accuracy of multi-factor biometric authentication at its pilot store by combining facial filtering technology with palm vein recognition.

In addition, when considering the introduction of the system for general users in brick-and-mortar stores going forward, it will become essential to improve the user interface of the system to improve user-friendliness, allowing users to register and authenticate themselves without complex explanations or intervention from store clerks.

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