Grab Malaysia to deploy facial recognition to enhance driver and passenger safety

Among a list of suggestions GRAB Malaysia is expected to submit to the country’s Ministry of Transport is a recommendation to use advanced facial recognition technology to enhance safety features for drivers and passengers, the Malaysian Reserve reports.

Country head Sean Goh said the Singapore-based ride sharing company has finalized the proposals to be discussed with Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke, adding that the purpose of the meeting is to come to an agreement over the implementation of new e-hailing regulations this quarter.

The company’s guidelines state that any driver for Grab Malaysia needs to first capture a photograph of their identity cards and upload it to the personnel file. However, as static images can be easily fabricated Goh proposes the use of advanced facial recognition technology, including a ‘live’ selfie, to verify there is a real live human in the car.

“We see many outcomes with this,” Goh explains. “Firstly, it will deter criminals from targeting our drivers. Secondly, if anything does occur, we will be able to provide the images to the authorities, so that they can do their job. It will form a better trust system for our drivers and lower friction for our users”, adding that the security feature is likely to be rolled out by the end of March.

Goh did say that the technology will be developed in-house. Last October Microsoft formed a strategic partnership with Grab to work together on innovations in big data and artificial intelligence and improve customer safety and experience with data analytics, fraud detection, machine learning, and computer vision.

Article Topics

biometric liveness detection  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  identity verification  |  Malaysia