Ride-sharing service, Grab, has partnered up with the Malaysian Ministry of Transport to bring facial recognition technology to its app, and for use by its customer base in Malaysia. The feature implementation is part of the brand’s initiative to enhance safeguards against crimes and protect driver-partners so they have greater peace of mind while earning a living.
Known officially as Passenger Verification, this added layer of imaging security works as one would expect. Grab users will be required to take a selfie of themselves. As a form of identification. Grab says that the facial recognition technology it employs is advanced enough that it can detect if the face in its view is real, and reject any form of “inappropriate” pictures.
Grab says that the Passenger Verification feature is already baked into the app’s software. It should be noted that the feature is only applicable for users who are hopping on to the service for the first time, while existing Grab users don’t need to do so.
Grab also says that the selfie is a one-off; once taken, that picture will be used as a form of verification. Further, Grab assures us that the image will not be used as a profile picture or shared to external parties, drivers or merchants.
