Kenyan ride-hailing app Little plans to use face recognition developed by Microsoft to verify their drivers' identities.Using face recognition technology provided by Microsoft Cognitive Face API, drivers can visit Little's Web platform where they will be prompted to take a selfie which is then compared to images on Little's records.This ensures that riders on this platform have improved peace of mind while using the service, as it eliminates the opportunity for non-registered drivers to pose as Little drivers and pick up unsuspecting customers.CIO East Africa magazine reports that Little's app has had over 200 000 downloads, with close to 2,000 drivers using the service.”Microsoft Cognitive Face API is part of Microsoft Cognitive Services, which helps ensure the driver using the app matches the account on file,” reports CIO.Kamal Budhabhatti, chairman of Little says the company is competing with some of the biggest companies in the world. “We just cannot compete with these companies from a capital scale. The only way we can compete is through ensuring that we innovate. That is why we piloted the security feature at the beginning of July with 100 of our drivers. Following a successful launch, we are now expanding and rolling it out to the rest of our drivers.”Microsoft Cognitive API, the technology behind the security solution, is a product of Microsoft's cloud-based offering, Azure. Using advanced face algorithms, it has the ability to detect human faces, compare these to similar ones and organise images into groups based on similarity.”Little is one of the most exciting companies in Kenya at the moment and their commitment to security, innovation and productivity is one of the main reasons why we chose to partner with them,” says Kunle Awosika, Small, Medium and Corporate Lead, Microsoft Africa.According to CIO, this technology also protects the drivers from being victims of fraud. “Their accounts cannot be compromised because only they can access them. This adds to a long list of reasons why drivers would want to sign up with Little.
Kenyan cab service to use face recognition
