Face Pay is a contactless fare payment service introduced in the Moscow metro and Moscow Central Circle (MCC) and based on face recognition technology. To pass through the turnstile, passengers do not have to tap their card or smartphone.

Data of Face Pay users is automatically converted into an encrypted biometric key, which is stored in an anonymized form on the server. It is impossible to decrypt the key back into an image. When passengers pass through the turnstile, the camera converts the passenger’s face into such a key and compares it with the keys in the database.

To use the system, users have to link a photo of the face, a bank card and ‘Troika’ to the ‘Moscow Metro’ app, look into the camera in front of the turnstile, which is marked with a special sticker, and the fare will be automatically paid. Payment transactions are the same as the transactions conducted when passengers use bank cards to pass the turnstiles. Liveness technology distinguishes a real face from a photo and makes using someone else’s photo to pay fares impossible.

The biometric data of users is encrypted and stored on secure servers in accordance with the rules of Russian legislation.