Disrupting The Facial Recognition Technology - Matthew Owen - Episode # 030

Apr 28 2022 • 50 mins

Matthew Owen has been solving problems as a Fractional Chief Technology Officer for 25+ years and is a Digital transformation leader, specifically with disruptive innovation of facial recognition. He is also a Twitter enthusiast, using it to ensure success at large scale events to gain valuable real-time consumer service feedback on new technology being implemented while it’s being experienced by the consumers.

Key Takeaways

The main ingredient for disruption is extreme customer focus, taking into account the customer experience and their journey.
Twitter could be a major feedback tool, where customer voices their opinion and experience about your product & services.
Facial recognition technology is controversial but when used correctly can be incredibly useful.
Facial recognition technology can help solve certain types of problems. Example: A Football stadium or a concert – 60 odd thousand people are trying to get in with an even smaller army of people helping them to get in, creating a bottleneck. Adding COVID to this mix makes it more challenging. Implementing Facial Recognition based express access or iPass allows fans and staff workers touchless access.
Status Quo with Events and what consumers expect after COVID – Change is constant, with COVID regulations easing out consumers are confused with overlapping rules thrown by the authorities. Each event has its own set of rules & regulations, making it challenging for fans and employees alike.
User education plays a pivotal role in making this technology scalable. The problem with educating the masses is that they are desensitized to marketing emails and half a short attention span.
A proper protocol is followed with multiple layers of screening and judgment to ensure peace of mind and public safety.
The challenge with this technology in the States is the regulatory environment. With privacy advocates for the consumers, the country is governed by laws making it difficult to navigate around them and still make sure the technology works for the consumers.
The future of Facial recognition technology is going to be ubiquitous, inevitable and can be deployed at every location for the good of the customer.
Part of the challenge is the myths surrounding the privacy and security of the technology – Consumers don’t really care as long as it’s convenient and saves them the Hassel. The real bottleneck it educating the end-users and making them aware of such technology.
The major challenge is budgeting – who pays for such a tech? Because it’s a cross-functional tech, getting all departments to agree to possess a greater challenge, which slows down the process.
It’s all about the consumer experience. When it comes down to it, any technology which is developed whether B2B or B2C, ultimately affects the end consumer. In the case of Facial recognition, it affects directly.

Quote of the show:

6:43 “The technology can it used for good or evil, just like any other technology we’ve invited as mankind. It’s incredibly useful if used correctly, there are things you can only do using facial recognition, like scanning a crowd of 66,000 people and picking out 3 people that shouldn’t be there”

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