Face-recognition technology has made inroads in Singapore in recent years despite privacy concerns and will arrive at one bank’s automated teller machines tomorrow.
OCBC bank announced today that, starting Friday, eight of its ATMs will allow customers to obtain account balances with their face instead of inserting a bank card. The technology will be expanded to allow withdrawals, deposits, transfers, and other services at all of OCBC’s 550 machines in June.
“With many customers already embracing QR cash withdrawals without having to use an ATM card, face verification will add a layer of convenience to more customers as they access our banking touchpoints,” the bank said in a statement today.
For those who wonder what happened to a debate about surrendering identity for sake of convenience, the ATMs will still accept cards (also, it never happened).
The eight machines are located at OCBC Tampines Centre Two, Taman Jurong Shopping Centre, Great Eastern, Pickering Street, OCBC Tampines Centre One, HDB Hub Level 1, 103 Yishun Ring Road, OCBC Campus, and a Geylang Road 7-Eleven.
ATM users will be required to key in their national ID numbers, before scanning their faces which the machine will use for verification against the government’s biometric database of the whole population.
Last year, the government added facial recognition to SingPass, its digital authentication system for those seeking services. That database now contains the vast majority of people, about 4 million faces.
OCBC is just the latest corporation to given access to the government system to get their hands on everyone’s faces in the name of convenience. DBS bank in July of last year were said to be the first corporation to gain access for its smartphone app.
According to OCBC, this intrusive technology is a “secure alternative” to physical ATM cards. It includes detection technology that blocks the use of photographs, videos or masks.
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