Bangalore, September 7 2019:  The recently concluded fourth edition of India’s largest conclave on Internet of Things, the IoT India Congress  2019, at the Lalit Ashok hotel in the city saw the first use  in India, of facial recognition  technology  for  admitting delegates and visitors to the venue.
While  registering for the event for free online, prior  to the Congress,  delegates  were encouraged to provided  basic details like name,  email, phone number and organisation, as well as uploading a  passport-type photograph of their face.
At the event, such pre registered delegates  were directed to a  row of special  wing gates each  equipped with a  shoulder-height camera which scanned the visitor's face  and  after  matching it with a pre-registered face within seconds, opened the wing gates.  There was no paper work of any kind to gain access -- dramatically reducing the queues normally to be seen at  the registration  desks of such conventions.
The  facial  recognition -based  entry barriers   were supplied  by  the  Chennai-based India subsidiary of  a German company which specialises in access gates and barriers -- Magnetic Access.   The company  with headquarters  in in Schopfheim in the southern Black Forest region  of Germany,  is  part of the FAAC Group since 2012, with subsidiaries in USA, Australia, Malaysia, India and Brazil.  The India operation has its manufacturing plant in Pondicherry and supplies a variety of vehicle and pedestrian barriers used in  car parks, toll stations, airports, industrial units etc.  While such gates  have been widely operated by swipe  cards,  finger print scans and  numeric passwords, this is the first instance where entry has been regulated by the   still evolving technology of facial recognition
At the  IoT Congress in Bangalore,  the organisers,  , the India office of  The Institution of Engineering and Technology  (IET)-- deployed the face recognition-backed  barriers at three locations -- at the main entrance to the event, at the entry to the technical sessions and at the food hall at lunch time. The  set ups  functioned without any glitch and  may encourage  other trade fairs and conventions to adopt this cutting edge technology to  avoid the traditional  crowding  that is a common feature  at the entry controls of large events in India.