Earlier this month I took part in a webinar with Fredrik Sidhagen, CEO of RCO moderated by Alan Goode, CEO and Chief Analyst at Goode Intelligence to discuss a topic that is at the heart of what we are working on at Precise – how to provide traditional access solutions with a digital upgrade.

There are a number of problems and ‘pain-points’ with traditional access solutions in our modern world. Firstly, tags, keys and passcodes are just not secure enough for today’s needs, nor do they provide a good customer experience. Onboarding processes for new users are slow and tedious, entry and exit experiences are far from smooth and yet this friction doesn’t achieve the primary goal of ensuring security. Tags, keys and passcodes are often shared, lost and stolen making it impossible to ensure that the right person is allowed to enter. Add to this, the costs of employing front desk staff for gatekeeping – particularly for facilities that operate 24×7 – you can see why a new solution is needed!

Using facial recognition, we are partnering with companies like RCO to deliver our powerful solution – Precise YOUNiQ – for secure and convenient access. Depending on a client’s needs, this solution uses existing infrastructure to enable a mix of features to be used – ranging from access using a selfie through to a layered modality approach with a combination of traditional and digital methods.

In the future I can see that we will increasingly move from proprietary, on premise systems to open-source and cloud-based operating systems where different companies in the eco-system can quickly add new features as required. Our APIs and cloud integrations mean that we can embrace this approach for a truly modern solution. I agree with Fredrik Sidhagen who said, “As this new ecosystem is unfolding, you need to be open-minded and dare to try new things. We want to innovate together with partners – we can’t do everything ourselves as companies traditionally did in the past, but we need to align with partners to create a great customer experience.”

So who is Precise YOUNiQ aimed at? It’s for all those areas that want to avoid the use of touch for access. Modalities such as fingerprint are strong methods to use for accessing your own device such as a smartphone or computer, but given the concerns at the moment surrounding physical touching of items in public spaces, facial recognition presents a safe alternative. We are seeing strong growth in the leisure industry, for example gym access, especially where businesses want to offer a 24×7 service. In line with Fredrik’s prediction that virtual tags on a smartphone and facial recognition will be the primary solutions used in 20 years’ time for all access control, I believe that over time, we will see tags and keys used less and less until they are hardly used at all.

To hear more about what the future will look like and how Precise YOUNiQ works, a recording of the webinar is now available to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vjhGoXcvXk
and you can read more on our website
https://precisebiometrics.com/digital-identity/