KFC Launches Facial Recognition Payment in China
KFC is said to be the second food company from the West that sought to open a franchise outlet in China, many years ago back in 1987. They followed McDonald's, after the folks at McDonald's opened up their first shop in China back in 1984. Since then, KFC has gone on to open up thousands of other locations; more than 5,000 different locations over the years.
They've also established KPro, which happens to be a “healthier alternative” to their traditional KFC options.
It tries to market a much healthier image and offers more salads, things like freshly made juice and paninis, it also has different branding from the traditional KFC image that we are familiar with (see image below).
At one of their KFC KPro locations, they are now accepting facial recognition scanning as a method of payment.
For those who visit this venue location and who don't want to bother to take out their wallet and pay with cash or open up their phone to pay with some mobile payment method, they can now scan their face at a kiosk. After they scan their face, they enter their phone number and the order will be placed.
The payment system that they've set up is said to be centered around the Alipay digital payment platform and the payment app also allows users to sign into the app using a scan of their face.
At this time, this KPro location is said to be the first location in the world that is a physical restaurant store location that is accepting facial recognition scanning as a form of payment. Eventually, they expect that this system will be rolled out to even more locations and consumers will start to see it at not only restaurants like KPro, but at places like retail outlets and more.
The new payment service is offered via Ant Financial and they've already indicated that they soon plan to extend the technology to a variety of other venue locations.
Facial recognition scanning is moving forward around the country in other ways as well, from being used to scan for toilet paper access, to scanning passengers at train stations, airports, and more.
Political officials there have already signaled their interest to move forward aggressively with their AI technology plans. And they have previously said that they plan for AI technology to play a very important part of their economy by the year 2020.
Pics:
Pixabay
thatsmags via thatsmags.com/china/post/19687/kfc-goes-green
icons8 via icons8.com/icon/7339/facial-recognition-scan
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_food_in_China
http://brandchannel.com/2017/07/14/kfc-k-pro-china-071417/
http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/01/technology/china-alipay-kfc-facial-recognition/index.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4843600/Just-smile-In-KFC-China-store-diners-new-way-pay.html
https://qz.com/1067460/in-china-facial-recognition-is-used-to-buy-kfc-board-planes-and-catch-drug-users/
It is amazing how facial recognition technology is improving. When I visited israel you had to go through biometric facial recognition to get through custom's. I was not a big fan of that.
I would not want to have my face scanned. If they can scan your face, they may one day be able to read your mind and even control it. I have not time for the thought police. IT sounds like a step toward a mark on your face or hand as prophesied in the Bible in Revelation. It will start out as a voluntary offering but eventually be forced on the public. China KFC is probably the first test market. Think if Hitler had this technology when he was alive! All we need is another Hitler prototype to rise up and take the world. Oh my! Well thanks for sharing and keeping us in the loop my friend.
It is a great advancement in the technology and cashless economy will be promoted by these new inventions. even the problems of fraud and theft will be eliminated a lot with this.
Unbelievable...
Well you know, saving face is very important in Chinese culture.
While awesome. I do not think I am ready to trust such systems yet.
damn bro $63 in 3 hours fast nice! hey well i know Whoppercoins in russian burger kings will be big, maybe KFC will have the KFC token,
anyway yeah face recognition becomes unnecessary with blockchain!
Man you dont need to scan ur face to pay for KFC!@
who is ever gonna spend more than a few dollars at KFC?? U dont go to KFC to make big ticket transactions LOL
this story is probably fake! hah
or just PR or hyped up i doubt people need face scanners to buy some fried chicken, its crazy lol
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