Due to the current pandemic, whole sectors of business are having to consider making adjustments going forward. These changes will mainly play out in the commercial sectors and labor-intensive industries.

Hopefully, by now, you’ve noticed the plexiglass protecting cashiers at supermarkets and the arrows which call out to some of our more rebellious natures. These practical changes which limit our proximities to one another can be seen as the beginning stages of another technological turning point in human history.

With contactless being, without a doubt, the most germ-free method of payment; physical contact is quickly becoming something of a taboo.

A Cornish facial recognition company is reinventing its aims to adapt to the new safety restrictions, as they become something of a norm.

TouchByte, contrary to what the name suggests, has moved into contactless product design.  Since keycodes, smart cards, and fingerprint technology will come under increasing scrutiny in a post-COVID19 society.

TouchByte has received funding of just short of £50,000 from Innovate UK, to develop their facial recognition technology. Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas.

Jeremy Sneller, TouchByte’s managing director, says: “The funding has meant that we can recruit additional people so that by the end of this four-month period, we’ll have a product that we can take to market.”

The company imagines the initial implications of this technology to be in the construction industry where many large building sites are secured by keycodes; an obvious hazard during a pandemic.

Since many major projects were given the go-ahead through lockdown, this move appears to be a calculated stratagem. TouchByte hopes to reopen the whole construction sector simply by showing some face.

The rise of facial recognition has long been foretold through a futuristic depiction of human civilization; be it dystopian or utopian, perhaps the time has finally come.