Osasuna fans enter the stadium with their face, like someone who uses Face ID. The company behind it is Spanish

El Sadar, the Osasuna stadium, is known for its intense, almost hellish atmosphere, which intimidates any rival, no matter how big. And since one of the last days of last season, also for being the first stadium in Spain that allows the access of its partners via facial recognition. They enter looking at one of the totems enabled by the club, after registering their face in the official application, and that’s it. Without papers, without plastic cards, without QRs, even without a mobile phone.

An Osasuna – Alavés, which also ended with a local victory by the minimum thanks to a goal in added time, was the game that saw the birth of this new way of accessing a football field. And the technology that made it possible, both at the hardware and software level, is Spanish. What’s more: it is from Pamplona, ​​where most of its 180 employees work.

Moncayola in the center and Veridas at the entrance

The biometric solutions company Veridas, whose headquarters are less than four kilometers from the stadium pinkis the one that developed both the identity verification part of the members who decided to test this way of accessing the stadium and the authentication part (determining who is wanting to access the field).

The proposal is voluntary and only the members who wanted to try it completed the previous steps, which are only necessary once: show the ID and the subscriber card to the mobile camera, and then show their face. A registration that can be done from anywhere, through the mobile.

Truthsvia dasGatehis line of business in the physical realm, turns those images into a hashes, a number of unique digits for each face that cannot be re-imaged. It does so through a previously trained Artificial Intelligence engine. Once that engine detects a face, it is able to distinguish it and recognize it even in the face of changes in the physique or despite the passage of time. It includes a life detection system to prevent fraud in the form of photos, videos or even masks.

“It does not use information such as the distances between parts of the face or anything similar, that was done by the old biometric systems, modern technologies use the hashes. It learns to distinguish a face in the same way that our brain does: it does not measure distances or create masks of points to fit, it simply recognizes it in an abstract way”, explains the CEO of Veridas, Edward Azanzain conversation with Xataka.

Azanza says that the company does not keep the information of its customers. In this case, Osasuna is the one who guards those hashes on their own servers. If that information were stolen, the thief would only see the numeric vector that corresponds to each hashesbut not pictures of faces next to each person’s name.

One of the usual doubts was whether those who adopted this system could continue to give their subscription to a friend or family member if they could not attend. The answer is positive… both in the traditional way and in the new way.

On the one hand, the physical subscription remains fully functional even if someone has registered your biometric access. Simply lend it physically to the other person. On the other hand, the application allows send a link to someone else so that you register your face and can enter the specific match for which we want to give it to you. “In this way, counterfeiting or resale is avoided, because you associate a season ticket or ticket with an identity,” says Eduardo.

The result of this implementation is that those who used it entered the field in three seconds each. At a rate of twenty accesses per minute. The average number of accesses via card with QR is six accesses per minute. A speed that is especially important at a delicate moment such as the moments before a match: there are people who arrive at the last minute and get nervous if they take time to access, there are groups somewhat upset by the match itself, many people gather in a space reduced…

The manufacture of the totems that Veridas uses as lathes, equipped with cameras and screens, is also national. “The competition was basically Asian. When we talk about personal data, biometrics, data protection… We wanted to ensure the data from start to finish, that there was no possibility of information leaks or back doors,” explains the CEO.

5 people access El Sadar:

1) Physical payment.
2) With your face.
3) With your face.
4) With your face.
5) Physical payment.

✅ Facial biometric access is much faster, more comfortable and safer. Here the proof: pic.twitter.com/DywTtoQjiT

— dasGate (@dasGate_es) April 21, 2022

Veridas’ track record in identity verification and authentication goes back a long way. They were the ones behind the BBVA campaign that invited people to register with the bank “by becoming a selfie” with an operating principle such as Osasuna’s biometric registration: they verify that a person is who they say they are through their ID and their face. They also work together with the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling to prevent minors or members from the self-excluded list can play.

In addition to other sectors in which they are present, such as in a residence for the mentally handicapped to allow its users to access their rooms simply by standing in front of the door and scanning their face (“they are people who are often not autonomous to handle a key or an access card”, says the CEO), Veridas will increase its presence in football, both nationally and internationally. Several first and second division clubs have been interested in their product and they are in negotiations, as well as the Mexican soccer league.