Does your phone support face payment? What you need to know

Chris, a tech professional based in Dubai, has been using face recogition for making retail purchases.

"I've used it for more than a year, both in the UAE and in other countries, both for online and in-store transactions. Thankfully, I never encountered any security issues," he told Gulf News.

Louie is a data manager based in East Asia and is an avid Android user. He doesn't use Google Pay facial recognition for payments feature, which was first rolled out in 2019. "QR and thumb print are my preferred authentication — QR for retail, and thumb print for banking."

"What's important is you have secure transactions," Louie said, adding that he will probably consider pay-with-your-face feature in the future if a second security layer, like a thumb print, is offered to secure transactions.

Facial biometrics for retail use offers a number of benefits: For one, it eliminates the need for you to carry physical payment cards or cash.

Facial recognition offers certain upsides: not only does it provide a fast and convenient way to make payments, but it's also relatively secure.

Because the payment is tied to a unique biometric identifier — such as a face — it is more difficult for fraudsters to impersonate a legit customer and steal their payment information. Thus, it offers the potential to become more widely adopted in the future.

Face payment refers to a type of biometric payment method where the customer's face is used as a form of identification — and authentication — to make a payment.

As face payment is a feature that allows users to make payments using facial recognition technology, the availability of this feature depends on the phone model and the operating system (OS) it runs on.

Following are some of the popular phone models that are compatible with face payment:

Note that while these phone models have the hardware required for face recognition, the specific features and capabilities may vary depending on the operating system, carrier, and region.

Some models may have additional biometric authentication options, such as fingerprint scanning or iris scanning, that can be used instead of, or in conjunction, with face recognition. Since only a few merchants currently support face payment, so it's always a good idea to check before using this feature.

Typically, here’s how it works:

In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), face payment technology has been adopted by several financial institutions and payment service providers.

A few examples:

The system has one key enabler: high-speed connectivity, use of mobile devices, and cheaper computer processing. With the adoption of advanced technology, face payment is becoming an increasingly popular way for customers to transact.

The service providers mentioned above, forms part of a growing list, adopting face payment as a secure and convenient option for customers to make payments.

There are several factors driving the adoption of face payment technology:

Not everyone is happy with it as protesters gathered against Amazon's Face "Rekognition" system.

As with any new technology, there are limitations. Before face payment becomes the norm, these challenges will need to be addressed.

Yes. On certain Apple devices, you can use Face ID  to authenticate purchases with Apple Pay and in the iTunes Store, App Store, and Book Store in Apple Books.

For Android devices, Google Pay mobile payments platform has now enabled facial recognition as a means of authentication, too.

Yes and no.

Yes, if Face ID with a mask is set-up. No, if it isn't. in general, if you're wearing a face mask that covers your mouth and nose, but Face ID with a mask isn’t set up, you may opt to tap “Pay with Passcode” and enter your passcode instead. Wait for “Done” and a tick to be displayed.

Also, certain services already accept recognition for sign in. In August 2021, Twitter rolled out sign in with Apple (for later iPhone and iPad models), and Google by confirming an account via face recgonition (Twitter users will still need to provide a date of birth and other info).

It's difficult to predict with any certainty. But face payment technology has the potential to become more widespread in the future.

Given the challenges mentioned above, it's possible the solution could be found sooner than later.

As face payment technology continues to gain popularity, its widespread adoption will become more likely. Whether this happens or not, it’s the mass market — users like you and me — will have the final say.