Identifying consumers in a transaction via facial recognition

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9619803-B2
Application number	US-201514701517-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 30, 2015
Priority date	Apr 30, 2015
Publication date	Apr 11, 2017
Grant date	Apr 11, 2017

Abstract

A merchant and a user register with a payment processing system, which establishes a facial template based on a user image. The user signs into a payment application via a user computing device, which receives an identifier from a merchant beacon device to transmit to the payment processing system. The payment processing system transmits facial templates to the merchant camera device for other users who are also signed in to the payment application in range of the merchant beacon device. The merchant camera device compares a captured facial image against the received facial templates to identify the user. A merchant POS device operator selects an account of the user. The merchant POS device transmits transaction details to the payment processing system, which processes the transaction with an issuer system. The payment processing system receives an approval of the transaction authorization request and transmits a receipt to the merchant POS device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method to identify users at locations by comparing facial imaging of users against facial templates of users known to be at particular locations, comprising:
broadcasting, by a computing device, an identifier associated with the computing device at a location;
receiving, by the computing device and from one or more other computing devices, one or more facial templates, each facial template associated with a corresponding user associated with a corresponding user computing device that received the broadcasted identifier at the location and retransmitted the identifier to the one or more other computing devices, each facial template comprising a representation of a respective facial image of the respective user;
storing, by the computing device, the one or more received facial templates;
capturing, by a camera module of the computing device, a video feed of an environment external to the computing device;
extracting, by the computing device, a facial image of a particular user from the video feed;
generating, by the computing device, a facial template of the particular user based on the facial image of the particular user, wherein the facial template of the particular user is a representation of the facial image of the particular user;
determining, by the computing device, a similarity between the generated facial template of the particular user and each of the one or more stored facial templates;
identifying, by the computing device, a particular stored facial template as corresponding to the generated facial template of the particular user based on the determined similarity between the generated facial template of the particular user and the particular stored facial template exceeding a threshold value indicating that the stored facial template corresponds to the generated facial template of the particular user;
transmitting, by the computing device, a response to a request to identify a user comprising an indication of the identified particular user.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving, by the computing device, the request to identify a user.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the environment external to the computing device comprises the particular user located in proximity to one or more merchant system point of sale devices associated with the computing device.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the request to identify a user is received from a merchant system point of sale device associated with the computing device, and wherein the response to the request to identify a user is transmitted to the merchant point of sale device.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising, processing, by the merchant point of sale device, a transaction using payment account information associated with the identified particular user.

6. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
determining, by the computing device and based on a frame of the video feed, a position of a face of the particular user and positions of each of the one or more point of sale devices at the location; and
assigning, by the computing device and based on distances between the face of the particular user and each of the one or more point of sale devices in the frame of the video feed, the particular user to a particular point of sale device of the one or more point of sale devices,
wherein the indication of the identity of the particular user further comprises an identifier of the particular point of sale device and an indication of the assignment of the particular user to the particular point of sale device.

7. A computer-implemented method to identify users at locations by comparing facial imaging of users against facial templates of users known to be at particular locations, comprising:
receiving, by one or more computing devices and from a particular user computing device, an account identifier of an account associated with a particular user associated with the particular user computing device and a beacon device identifier, wherein the particular user computing device retransmits the beacon device identifier received via a network from a beacon device at a location associated with the beacon device identifier;
retrieving, by the one or more computing devices, a facial template associated with the account of the particular user based on the account identifier of the account associated with the particular user;
identifying, by the one or more computing devices, the location associated with the beacon device identifier;
adding, by the one or more computing devices, the facial template associated with the account of the particular user and the associated location to a current customer log comprising facial templates corresponding to user computing devices that retransmit the beacon device identifier received from the beacon device at the location associated with the beacon device identifier;
transmitting, by the one or more computing devices and to a computing device at the location, the current customer log comprising the facial template associated with the account of the particular user, wherein the computing device identifies the particular user based on identifying the facial template associated with the account of the particular user from the current customer log as being similar to a facial template of the particular user generated from a facial image of the particular user captured by the computing device.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
determining, by the one or more computing devices, that the particular user computing device is no longer maintains the network connection with the beacon device;
in response to determining that the particular user computing device no longer maintains the network connection with the beacon device, removing, by the one or more computing devices, the facial template associated with the account of the particular user and associated location from the current customer log to generate an updated current customer log; and
transmit, by the one or more computing devices and to the computing device, the updated current customer log.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein determining that the particular user computing device no longer maintains the network connection with the beacon device comprises detecting no subsequent transmission from the particular user computing device of the user account identifier and the beacon identifier within a threshold amount of time.

10. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
receiving, by the one or more computing devices and from the computing device, a facial template associated with an identified user, a transaction total, and a merchant account identifier from the computing device at the location;
determining, based on the received facial template associated with the identified user, an account identifier associated with the identified user;
transmitting, by the one or more computing devices and to a point of sale device, payment account information associated with a user account associated with the account identifier associated with the identified user;
receiving, by the one or more computing devices and from the point of sale device, an indication of a selection of particular payment account information from the payment account information for use in a transaction;
generating, by the one or more computing devices, a transaction authorization request comprising the transaction total, the merchant account identifier, and the particular payment account information item;
transmitting, by the one or more computing devices, the transaction authorization request to an issuer system associated with the particular payment account information;
receiving, by the one or more computing devices an

Assignees

• Google Inc

Inventors

• Chandrasekaran Sashikanth
• Kalenichenko Dmitry
• Zwiebel Timothy Raymond

Classifications

• G06Q20/202 Primary

  Interconnection or interaction of plural electronic cash registers [ECR] or to host computer, e.g. network details, transfer of information from host to ECR or from ECR to ECR · CPC title

• G06Q20/40145 Primary

  Biometric identity checks · CPC title

• G06T2207/30201

  Face · CPC title

• G06T7/74

  involving reference images or patches · CPC title

• G06Q20/3224

  Transactions dependent on location of M-devices · CPC title