How Sine uses facial recognition for workplace management

Want to manage your workplace more efficiently?

Looking for new tools to address the challenges you face at your workplace?

The good news is that facial recognition is no longer science fiction.

• Allied Market Research expects the facial recognition market to grow to $9.6 billion by 2022.
• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security predicts facial recognition will be used on 97% of airport travellers by 2023.

In this article, you’ll learn some of the ways facial recognition can help you improve your workplace management (You’ll also get a quick look at the history of facial recognition tech.).

A Brief Timeline of the History of Facial Recognition

We’ve written about facial recognition before on the blog but let’s take a quick look at the history of facial recognition.

But first, let’s be sure we’re on the same page. What exactly is facial recognition? How does it work?

According to Techopedia, “facial recognition is a biometric software application capable of uniquely identifying or verifying a person by comparing and analyzing patterns based on the person's facial contours.”

Woody Bledsoe, Helen Chan Wolf, and Charles Bisson are considered the pioneers of facial recognition technology. During the 1960s, they worked on using a computer to recognize human faces but only some of their work was published and recognized because their project was funded by an intelligence agency. 

In the 1970s, Harmon, Lesk and Goldstein improved the accuracy of facial recognition by identifying 21 facial measurement points.

Researchers at Heinz College found evidence that facial recognition software has existed since 1973. By 1988, Kirby & Sirovich were able to normalize a facial image using fewer than 100 measurement points. 

Then, in 1991, Turk & Pentland completed the first crude facial detection.

As you can see below, we’ve continued to advance the field of facial recognition ever since.

Today, there are a growing number of facial recognition applications. Let’s take a look at some of the places where facial recognition is in use.

The Benefits of Using Facial Recognition in the Workplace 

Managing the workplace is about optimizing the use of your resources and facilities.

Well, one of the obvious advantages of facial recognition technology is safety and security. 

Other, less obvious advantages include:

• Employee Productivity -- Facial recognition software allows reception staff to work more efficiently. 
• Automation -- The technology can also allow 24/7 access to a worksite eliminating the need for special access requests during “off” hours.
• Managing Employee Records -- The digital database used to enable check-in using facial recognition can also be used to verify attendance later if necessary. 

A human face has about 80 nodal points. Facial recognition technology software measures these points -- including the distance between the eyes, the width of the nose, the shape of the cheekbones, and length of the jawline -- and translates that data into a numerical code, called a faceprint. 

Since facial recognition does not require contact like fingerprinting and other security measures, facial recognition offers a fast, automated, and seamless check-in or check-out experience.

Using Sine’s Face Check to Help With Workplace Management

We created Face Check to help organizations streamline your efforts. Here’s how easy it is to use:

1. Tap check-in on the home screen of the Sine iPad app.
2. Select 'First Time User' (If you've already opted-in to Face Check at this site, it’s a breeze to check-in as a returning user.).
3. Enter your details (the fields you’ll see may vary depending on individual site requirements).
4. At the photo screen, opt-in to Face Check by tapping on the toggle in the bottom right corner of the screen and confirming at the prompt.
5. You have now checked-in using Face Check!

Face Check is opt-in, which means visitors must agree to use Face Check during their initial check-in process.

Check-out is even easier. 

1. Tap the check-out button on the main screen of the app via the Sine iPad.
2. Align your face within the square shown on the screen. When the app detects your face, the image will darken and a spinning icon will be displayed.
3. Once your face has been detected, you’ll be checked out!

Here are a few more ways Sine’s Face Check can help with workplace management.

• Access control -- The entrance of your workplace is the first line of defence. When facility entrances aren’t secure, your worksite is vulnerable to illegal access by outsiders. Because it is difficult (if not impossible) to manipulate a face as you can with a paper ID or plastic swipe card, facial recognition offers safeguards traditional verification methods can’t deliver.
• Quicker check-ins and check-outs -- Face Check works for return visitors. When a visitor checks in to a site their image is taken and they can opt-in to face-check, which means when they return they can use their face to check-in and won’t have to fill any forms out.
• Time and attendance -- Absenteeism costs the Australian economy more than $44 billion annually. And companies underpaying staff is also a hot topic. In fact, a study by the Australia Institute found the average full-time Australian employee worked 5.1 hours in unpaid overtime every week — 264 hours per year — nearly two months' unpaid overtime a year. With the help of Face Check and our reporting capabilities, people can use their face to check-in and out of their office and their check-in time and out time is recorded which makes payroll more accurate.
• Visitor and employee tracking -- A visitor management system with facial recognition capabilities can easily show you where your guests and staff are at all times. Plus, you can print easy-to-identify badges that show authorized areas of access and the badge’s expiration time.
• Improved Security -- Knowing who’s on-site at any given time and having an image of their face improves security. This is made even more powerful when you add in our instant badge printing and convenient blacklisting features. These come in handy if you need to cover multiple access points. 
• Increasing staff productivity -- When you free reception staff from monitoring guest logs, you create space for them to work on higher-value activities. This helps your company save time and money. 

We’ve come a long way from the time when facial recognition was portrayed in movies like RoboCop, The Fifth Element, and Terminator as a futuristic fantasy. 

Now, it’s becoming more common to see facial recognition in use in the workplace. That’s why we launched Face Check...to help make your operations safer and save your visitors, contractors, and your team time.

Interested in learning how Sine can help with your workplace management? Get instant access to Face Check and all our features. You can book a live demo here.