Personalizing the Customer Experience at Sea with Advanced Recognition Systems

According to the Cruise Lines International Association 2018 Cruise Industry Outlook (CLIA), 27.2 million passengers are expected to cruise with 27 new ocean, river and specialty ships to launch this year. 2018 is also the year that CLIA predicts a rise in traveler-friendly technology to enhance their customers’ travel experiences.

The question on the minds of progressive cruise line market leaders is how to securely process increasingly larger numbers of passengers while adding more customer ease into the cruise experience. Many in the cruise line industry are considering the use of biometrics technology.

How a Single Unified Biometric Key Creates Seamless Experiences

Biometric Key

Passwords, loyalty cards and other forms of ID are used in every encounter, from shopping at the grocery store to listening to your favorite playlist to boarding a cruise ship. Enterprise leaders are recognizing the amount of information consumers have to carry, either physically or mentally, in order to access personalized experiences. Allen Ganz, Director of Advanced Recognition Solutions at NEC America offers a different take: “Your face is a unified key.”

NEC’s facial recognition solutions, ranked #1 after performance testing by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), identify individual faces of people as they move in real time, without stopping to look at a camera. This technology allows each individual to use their face as a unified biometric key, in many different situations, to create seamless and personalized experiences.

Specific to the cruise line industry, early adopters have found that a unified biometric key can be used for:

  • Biometric Passenger Manifest
  • Cruise Terminal Queue Management
  • Effortless Check-In and Bag Check
  • Frictionless Expedited Embarkation and Debarkation
  • Intelligent Customized Displays
  • Seamless Payment
  • Access Control
  • Data and Video Analytics
  • Command and Control

Cruise Terminal Queues and Check In

Embarkation day can be hectic for the traveler who is ready to get away from it all. The lines to board the ship can be excruciatingly long unless the traveling couple or family has purchased priority embarkation through the cruise line loyalty program. However, this process does not need to be time consuming. With the use of a unified biometric key, the queue to board the ship–even for those travelers who are not VIPs, can be more efficient.

Since the Customs check-in typically slows the process of boarding the ship, travelers can speed this up by self-enrolling in the ship’s system using facial recognition; they simply take a quick selfie using their smartphone, and opt in. Now, with a simple scan of their face, they have created a unique and unified biometric key to also use aboard the ship. Rapid access authentication quickly matches the traveler to the ship’s guest list, enabling the guests to come aboard faster. Onboard, baggage can also be matched to the traveler’s profile using only their face, so they can quickly access their luggage upon arrival or departure.

VIP Treatment

Once passengers have enrolled themselves and created their own unified biometric key, they can now use their face to unlock personalized VIP experiences tailored to their interests and manifest. Using intelligent customized displays, guests will be able to walk up and see their personalized itinerary and other entertainment options. Facial recognition technology can also open guest room doors, and purchase items on the ship through facial payment, creating a simple and frictionless experience. With a system that automatically matches each guest to their individual preferences, all travelers feel welcomed and recognized on a personal level.

Implementing facial recognition can also benefit cruise lines by prompting their staff to enthusiastically welcome loyalty guests and to personalize birthday, anniversary and other special occasion greetings.

Disney and Carnival ships are currently using biometrics to sell their passenger’s vacation photos taken during the cruise. Instead of presenting guests with a card or having, them review the photos on a wall, the system sorts through the photos by matching them to their face, and presents them on a personalized display or through a mobile app.

Read also: The Security Solution is Staring Us in the Face

Frictionless Embarkation and Debarkation

Cruise ships have 2,000 to 4,000 passengers and over 1,000 employees on board, which means embarkation and debarkation at ports may take hours to complete. With the use of an individual’s unified biometric key, passengers and employees are recognized for that particular cruise, which reduces passenger-processing by 40% or more, adding efficiency to the port embarkation and debarkation experience.

The process is simple. When passengers or employees disembark from the ship, their face is scanned using facial recognition, and is matched to the image from the initial enrollment process. Without the need to stop, travelers can exit and re-enter the ship in record time, giving them more time at their port of call. In fact, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Georgia is already relying on facial recognition technology and Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport is also participating in biometric testing with NEC’s NeoFace® Express both with much success.

Improving Safety and Security

Because a unified biometric key is unique to each individual, it can be used to improve the safety and security for everyone on board, ensuring only those persons who should be on the ship are on the ship. Facial recognition can also be used for access control, to allow cruise staff to secure employee-only areas with a scan of their face. Cruise line security can track guests, color-code traveling families, and easily create different settings for particular travelers or families.

NEC: The Leading Facial Recognition Provider

Early adopters in the cruise line industry have already begun using facial recognition to create a positive, effortless experience for their guests. NEC offers the most advanced identification matching technology today. For ten consecutive years, NEC’s facial recognition technology has been awarded first place from the U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). Some of the standards met during the testing included:

  • Recognizing one individual at a time, as they walked through a crowded area without stopping
  • Detecting suspicious individuals at an indoor stadium
  • Accuracy and speed of matching to photos already in a database

NEC’s NeoFace® Express uses facial recognition to transform the travel experience–or any hospitality experience that involves large groups of people. The system interfaces with on-board video systems for easy integration. Adding facial recognition and other biometric technology allows cruise lines to offer a first-class journey with security, frictionless access, and to give passengers a personalized experience using a simple, unified biometric key.

Ready to learn more? Fill out the form below for a simple consultation with one of our biometric subject matter experts or visit us online to for more information on our biometric solutions.

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How Criminal Investigations Can Be Expedited Using Facial Recognition

Across the nation, Law Enforcement Organizations (LEOs) are inundated every day with photographic and video evidence in their Criminal Investigation Divisions (CID). Numerous agencies have shared with me that in more than 30% of their CID cases the ONLY evidence they have is a photo or video of an unknown suspect, received from a variety of sources, including surveillance cameras, RING doorbells, and smartphones. Typically, law enforcement resorts to sharing these images via social media, in hopes that someone will recognize the individual. Hoping for a random identification is not the most solid investigation strategy, but there is now a way those same images can become viable leads for Investigators to pursue, to catch the offenders and get them off the streets.

NEC’s NeoFace® WideNet is designed to assist law enforcement agencies by turning their mugshot repositories interfaced with our NIST award winning Facial Recognition solution into Facial Recognition as a Service for Law Enforcement. For the first time, multiple agencies will be able to share their mugshots with each other, AND utilize NEC’s powerful NeoFace Facial Recognition–the industry’s fastest and most accurate face matching algorithm. A key benefit to the criminal case investigation is the advantage of quick processing of facial evidence coupled with its ability to rapidly generate a list of persons of interest. Speedy identification means NEC’s NeoFace WideNet-hosted service saves valuable time in the investigations of cases containing facial video evidence, thus reducing the investigator’s caseload.

Designed to be highly scalable as well as affordable, NeoFace WideNet is for small, medium, and the largest of law enforcement agencies. Because this service changes the model for this purchase from CAPEX to OPEX, this lowers acquisition costs and is enabling agencies of all sizes to utilize the technology.
NeoFace WideNet customers see an immediate return on investment with the reduction of investigation time and reduced investigator workloads. But most importantly, this crime fighting solution helps turn those previously unusable images into hard evidence to solve crimes and help close cases.

Now agencies will be able to share their mugshots with each other, utilizing the powerful NeoFace #FacialRecognition #software--the industry’s fastest and most accurate face matching algorithm Click To Tweet

Just as AFIS revolutionized fingerprint evidence over 30 years ago, NeoFace WideNet is poised to positively impact law enforcement by effectively doing the same thing with photo and video evidence.
If your organization is interested in solving more crimes and arming your investigators with the tools to be more efficient, check this out.

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Irving Police Department (IPD)

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Ready to “face” the latest technology for shoppers?

At NRF17, we debuted our new facial payment solution, which allows registered shoppers to pay for their products with their face. No cash, checks or cards are necessary, you just use your good looks to save time and money.

You might have heard about the Amazon Go store prototype in Seattle, in which customers simply walk in, select their products, and walk out. With NEC’s NeoFace® facial recognition technology, which by-the-way has one of the world’s highest level of authentication accuracy, you can give your customers a similar experience.

How does it work?

Our technology matches pre-registered facial images against images taken and stored in the NeoFace® database by the POS (point of sale).  All a customer needs to do is opt-in to use the solution by submitting their photo and entering a PIN to keep their account secure. The PIN is entered at time of payment to confirm the person’s identity and account information.

Pretty cool! Watch our NRF video to see how it can work with you existing POS and how it can be deployed in your store.

Has it been tested?

Right now, NEC is testing the solution in Japan in cooperation with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC). In the trials, NEC, SMBC and Sumitomo Mitsui Card are testing the recognition performance, employee receptivity to biometric authentication, and functionality of the service. During the trial the goal is to gain the experience and know-how to provide a safe, secure, convenient cashless (and card-less) payment service utilizing facial recognition technology at other branches in the future.

We are also testing this solution in small shops in our headquarters building in Japan. Our trials are measuring authentication performance and accuracy, specifically when dealing with multiple conditions inside stores, such as, the types of cameras in use, camera positioning, installation, lighting and security.

Where can I learn more?

Retail solutions from NEC aim to help you “Know Your Customer” better. We work closely with our customers to develop a deep understanding of business needs to provide the best retail solutions possible and our facial payment product is just one of the innovative ways we can help retailers get things moving better — and faster — right in your own stores.

Check out NEC’s full retail suite by visiting www.necam.com/smartretail or let us know if you want more information by filling out the form below.

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