Moscow Metro Face Pay

Face Pay is a facial recognition-based cashless, cardless and phoneless system spread across 240 Moscow Metro stations. Passengers only need to look at a camera to travel.

Introduced in October 2021, Face Pay was developed by Russian software firms NtechLab, VisionLabs and Tevian in conjunction with Russian bank VTB  Group. 

Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin welcomed the initiative by boasting the city 'is the first in the world to introduce Face Pay on such a scale. The technology is new and very complex, we will continue to work on improving it.'

Risks and harms 🛑

Face Pay has been criticised for violating privacy, helping expand surveillance across Moscow, and undermining human rights and civil liberties.

• Upon launch, activists expressed concerns about possible privacy abuse and the system's potential for surveillance and social control. Face Pay is 'a good pretext to put cameras at the turnstiles' an activist group from Moscow told the New York Times. 

• In March 2022, the BBC reported that protestors against Russia's invasion of Ukraine were likely being identified by the Moscow Metro's facial recognition system.

• Shortly afterwards, Moscow’s municipal IT department announced it is looking to build a centralised data storage facility for facial recognition and other data collected from the city and across Russia.

• In 2019, Moscow City Police were found to have been selling citizens' facial data and access to live streams of the city's CCTV facial recognition surveillance network, according to an investigation by MBKh Media. 

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

• https://www.akm.ru/eng/news/moscow-metro-and-vtb-launched-fare-payment-using-facial-recognition-in-the-subway/

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/15/privacy-fears-moscow-metro-rolls-out-facial-recognition-pay-system

• https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/privacy-fear-as-moscow-metro-launches-facial-id-payment-system-vjjz5t66c

• https://uk.news.yahoo.com/russia-rolling-facial-recognition-payment-030626100.html

• https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/10/15/moscow-metro-introduces-worlds-first-pay-by-face-system-a75300

• https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/moscow-says-it-is-first-to-launch-large-scale-metro-facial-id-payment-system/ar-AAPyMjU

• https://www.ibtimes.com/moscow-metro-launches-face-recognition-payments-3317375

• https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/10/11/moscow-commuters-will-soon-be-able-to-use-just-their-faces-to-pay-to-use-the-metro

• https://www.dw.com/en/moscow-subways-new-face-pay-system-draws-mixed-reactions/av-59515944

• https://www.biometricupdate.com/202110/face-biometric-payments-launch-at-scale-in-moscow-metro

• https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/world/europe/moscow-face-pay-technology-privacy.html

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60649725