The technology that drives facial recognition uses sophisticated, multi-step processing powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Nobody does it better than eConnect, which has mastered the ability to transform a property’s surveillance system into a living database of movement, behavior, and association.
Henry Valentino, President and CEO, knows that his award-winning company’s experience and situational awareness of the surveillance metrics are unique to the casino industry as well as stadium, restaurant, and hospital venues. It makes eConnect uniquely qualified to apply AI-driven facial recognition and behavioral analytics software.
Gone are the days when nodal measurements taken of a person standing in front of a camera were the prime movers of facial recognition according to Valentino, who explained that now a neural network checking thousands of variations and matches is analyzed from a live video feed.
“Cameras have a lot of data, but it takes a long time to watch a video or videos,” Valentino said. “You may be inclined to speed it up. In doing so you may miss something. A great deal of time can be invested into reviewing the feeds of the thousands of cameras a property may have installed.
“What AI has done is unlock that data, making it possible to interpret the data with much greater sophistication than just movement. The same AI can interpret the entire video of that person who has just walked through the scene and apply recognition in milliseconds for the security guard at the entrance or the surveillance department of the property.”
Pechanga Resort Casino in Southern California has committed to covering the entire property with every application of eConnect surveillance technology, and, according to Valentino, has had remarkable success with facial recognition.
Chad Scofield, Surveillance Supervisor at Pechanga, on a recent webinar spoke about the number of banned patrons that have been identified in addition to known ticket thieves and self-excluded players. He said that the ability to link facial matches to movement and transactional data in a fraction of the time it used to take also supports law enforcement far beyond the casino floor.
Valentino said “some of the properties we work with just do the entrances. That way they know everybody walking in and leaving, but what they do not know is if the guest just went to dinner. Or if they gambled but did not use a player’s card. These are things that the property wants to learn instead of just knowing if they showed up.”
Every face that appears on camera is automatically captured, vectorized, and stored. The result is a historical, searchable log of all faces across all entrances, gaming floors, and restricted areas. Enrollment happens in real time with no disruption to property flow. eConnect facial recognition excels in high traffic, high stakes, and low control environments.
eConnect’s facial recognition technology enrolls faces in real time, links faces to operational data, tracks associations and patterns, sends real-time alerts instantly, and importantly to casino properties, excels in high-traffic environments.
Whereas some facial recognition systems only scan for matches against limited watchlists, eConnect enrolls every single face that passes in front of a connected camera automatically and in real time. It creates a searchable intelligence system around both known and unknown guests.
The eConnect system makes positive identifications despite disguises and age or drug related changes in appearance.
eConnect’s most recent development is the Red Light/Green Light system which combines ID scanning, facial recognition, and smart alerting. It streamlines the ID check process while at the same time ensuring full compliance resulting in faster entry, reduced friction, and a better first impression.
“Red Light/Green Light is a unique application of facial recognition as it applies to properties identifying everyone at the entrances,” Valentino explained. “It replaces the need for a guest to break out their physical ID, because once they are registered, a digital ID is created so that every time the guest returns, they get a ‘Green Light.
“Pechanga is applying “Red Light/Green Light to select areas of the property which makes deep investigation and associations possible, while several of our other customers are doing it just at the entrance.”
Here is how it works: A first-time guest will have their government-issued ID scanned at a check-in kiosk which captured their facial image and enrolls them into eConnect’s database. On return visits, the same guest will approach the kiosk or entry-camera at which point facial recognition instantly identifies them without the need to rescan.
The kiosk glows green if the guest is verified. It glows red if ID verification is still required. Alerts and visual cues are logged and/or sent to the appropriate staff as needed for guests who are flagged, unenrolled, or require further verification.
eConnect’s Red Light/Green Light applications enhance the guest experience in a variety of ways, including creating a VIP-like arrival experience and recognition of high-frequency and loyalty members. It is powered by the same persistent enrollment and real-time facial recognition engine used across the eConnect suite.
Furthermore, the application integrates with existing surveillance and ID scan infrastructure while providing full audit trails for compliance and investigation without the need of special hardware.
“The digital profile of a person is stored,” Valentino said. “In the case of Pechanga, it is also checked against multiple databases, including very substantial ban lists that they keep. We wrote an integration into their system called CIP reporting which tracks all incidents, whether it is a slip-and-fall, a parking lot accident, a stolen purse, or a complaint about an employee.”
Databases are also created for people who have requested to be self-excluded. as well as for known advantage players. Depending upon the property, individuals can be checked across criminal databases, both locally and nationally, at the request of law enforcement.
eConnect reveals to properties the “Power of Associations” by showing not just who someone is, but who they are with. It empowers properties to identify known associates of flagged individuals or banned guests, reveal patterns in vendor or team movement across restricted areas, and identify companion clusters across multiple visits.
Valentino addressed what he described as “one of the astonishing figures” that has emerged in the wake of eConnect’s aggressive application of AI-driven facial recognition analytics.
“Let us say you go to a property that doesn’t have facial recognition and ask the security/surveillance director how often bad actors are identified,” he continued. “How many of them do you think you are catching? The answer always is ‘most of them’ but statistics reveal that they are missing ninety percent of them. Only ten percent are identified without facial recognition.”
