RealSense enables face biometrics for student nutrition programs through TabletKiosk

Kids are not typically noted for their patience, so it’s no surprise some would rather bail on lunch than wait for someone in the lunch line to remember their PIN code.

3D camera company RealSense is aiming to tackle the problem in federal nutrition programs with student facial authentication for lunch payments. RealSense has integrated its ID Solution F455 into the TabletKiosk TKANNA point-of-sale system. It uses an active stereo depth sensor, with a specialized neural network and dedicated system-on-chip to verify facial biometrics, matching students’ facial images to their student ID numbers so that payments can be processed automatically.

According to a company case study, schools can safely train the TKANNA system using photos from the images stored in the Student Information System database, yearbooks, or other sources. “Digital face prints are converted into nonsensical strings of data, impossible to reverse into a picture, ensuring that facial images can never be copied, misused, or shared,” RealSense says.

TabletKiosk opted for the full-featured SDK that comes with RealSense ID, “enabling the company to easily integrate and provide customized solutions faster.”

“When we looked at developing something similar from scratch, we realized it would have required millions of dollars of investment and years of development,” says Martin Smekal, president of TabletKiosk. In addition to affordability, key drivers for the selection of RealSense’s biometric hardware included speed and accuracy – both which publicly-funded student nutrition programs need.

RealSense was incubated at Intel Corp but formally cut ties with that company in July, with $50 million in early-stage funding. The firm, which is based in Santa Clara, California, recently published a whitepaper on facial authentication deployments for enterprise biometric access control.

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  face biometrics  |  facial authentication  |  RealSense  |  RealSense ID  |  schools