CaliBurger announced today that starting on January 30 customers at its Pasadena location will be able to pay for their meals with a smile. The quick service restaurant is expanding the use of facial recognition at that location from just unlocking loyalty accounts to actually paying for meals.
CaliBurger launched the FacePay pilot program towards the end of last year that allowed customers to use facial recognition kiosks to access meal histories, preferences and other bits of information stored in their loyalty accounts. According to a statement from CEO of Cali Group, John Miller, reaction was so positive to that program they fast-tracked payment capabilities.
It appears as though CaliBurger is taking security around facial recognition seriously. During the pilot, customers will be able to initiate payment for their meal with a glance at the camera, but they’ll still need to enter the three digit CVV from their credit card to finalize the transaction. The company says that after people get comfortable with facial recognition payments they will phase out the need for the CVV.
Assuming this new payment pilot goes well, look for CaliBurger to expand how it incorporates facial recognition kiosks into its restaurants. Bite, which provides facial recognition tablets for restaurants, has shown that using a person’s face to unlock their account allows menus to become more dynamic. They can be rearranged on the fly to frontload and upsell items based on a customer’s personal preferences.
In the meantime, those wanting a peek at the future of quick service restaurants can hit up the Pasadena CaliBurger at the end of this month. They can smile at the camera to pay for their meal and wave to Flippy the robot who is flipping their burgers.
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