BIOMETRIC PASS: A turnstile camera scans the passenger’s face and allows them to access the station
Moscow Metro has officially launched its FacePay biometric ticketing system across the Russian capital’s entire metro network, enabling passengers to pay their fares at station turnstiles using face recognition technology.
“The system has been tested by passengers and employees of the Transport Complex of Moscow since the beginning of 2021 and is finally ready for a full launch,” the transit authority says.
“To use the new payment technology, you need to connect the Troika transport card and a bank card to the Moscow Metro mobile app and upload your photo.
“The payment procedures are the same as when passing the turnstile with a bank card. All the data is securely encrypted: cameras on the turnstiles read the biometric key, [the] face image or other personal data of users are not compared.”
At launch, every station on Moscow’s metro network has at least one FacePay-enabled turnstile and this will be increased “if the demand for the new system is growing”, Moscow Metro says.
To date “about 20 thousand people have already registered on the service” and Moscow’s Department of Transport forecasts that “in the next 2-3 years, 10-15% of passengers will regularly use FacePay”.
A short video shows how the system works.
Moscow Metro began a public trial of the FacePay system in August and announced that it would be rolling out the service across its entire network in September.
Moscow Metro completes full rollout of biometric FacePay ticketing was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.