MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

Blink Identity Touchless Identification

One-line solution summary:

Touch-free facial recognition and health screening for offices, community centers and event venues.

Pitch your solution.

Many systems for verifying identity in use today result in exposure to infection. Visitors use public touchscreens to enter passwords or PINs or press their fingers on shared fingerprint readers. Security holds an ID badge for a scan, or stands within hearing distance to ask health screening questions.

Blink Identity’s revolutionary identity-in-motion technology identifies enrolled users at full walking speed, in any lighting condition, using advanced facial recognition – all with staff and security observing at a safe distance. Moreover, the simple process for providing one’s image for identification can also perform access-gating health screening. There is nothing visitors need to touch to prove their identities, and no one on staff is required to be exposed, whether that means patients, fellow employees or even sports fans!

What specific problem are you solving?

The spread of bacteria and viruses typically results from exposure to the germs an infected individual, most often through contact or close proximity. While limiting the number of instances in which such exposure occurs may help reduce contamination, work, health care, social activity and entertainment events are a necessity of daily life. In today’s world, the need to establish one’s identity is critical, and often a requirement to engage in those same activities. With approximately 95% of the world’s population concentrated on just 10% of the world’s land, and 90% is no more than 48 hours from a large city, this is a global reality.

Moreover, many systems for verifying identity in use today result in exposure to infection. Visitors touch screens used by thousands of others, enter passwords or PINs on mass keypads or press on fingerprint readers to enter major amusement parks. Security teams hold ID badges up close for review or to scan a bar code, or lean in to be within hearing distance to ask health screening questions.

A touch-free solution monitored from a distance would significantly prevent contamination from such sources, while still enabling the world’s need for identification and access.

What is your solution?

The Blink Identity’s solution is a touch-free enterprise access control software system that leverages a custom hardware sensor capable of identifying users in any lighting condition, with a throughput of 45 people per minute. The system provides a fully automated visitor management/access control capability, allowing visitors to pre-enroll ahead of an appointment and simply walk past a sensor for entry, without contact or close proximity to another person.

Visitors may self-enroll with their phone’s camera via a special invitation link from an authoritative source, or organizations may bulk enroll users via import from existing galleries. Furthermore, records can be shared between related branches, allowing one enrollment to work at multiple locations. Users are greeted with a “welcome” screen displaying their name as enrolled, potentially with other information as desired by the user or client of the system. Alerts can be generated for access attempts outside of authorized hours. Authorization rules can be set with specificity, limiting access to a subset of sensors.

Blink Identity also supports webhooks, SMS, Weigand, and other integrations with external systems for access, and provides a comprehensive reporting/tracking system allowing for visibility into all access activities.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Blink Identity’s Touchless Identification solution has applications across vertical industries and multiple population segments. Initially conceived as commercial tool for access management, for example to enable employers a more efficient and secure system for office entry, interest came quickly from the live event space with, with music venues and sports arenas looking for a better method of ticket management and enhanced VIP experiences. And while focus originated the U.S. and Europe, event managers in China, Lagos, and Ghana began inquiring about bringing the Blink Identity solution to serve their populations.

With the outbreak of COVID-19 came an interruption in live sports and entertainment, and briefly we expected to see a corresponding drop in requests. Instead, we’ve seen an increase in inbound sales activity, with elder care facilities, youth sports complexes, and related health care organizations looking for touch-free ways to serve their communities.

In short, we are continuing actively to discover the composition and needs of our target population, because to-date that target has been expanding. With the opportunity to address a global health concern running parallel to multiple needs for identity management, we see potential across the world, amid a plethora of industries.

Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Challenge.

If the best defense is a good offense, then prevention is the best weapon against an infectious disease pandemic. Hygiene, detection and diagnostics are useful for resisting infection, recognizing potential contagions and verifying diseases, respectively, but reducing opportunities to spread the threat in the first place mitigates the burden across all solutions. Hand-in-hand with the need for security and identity management during the increasing globalization of technology is ensuring that technology adapts to the new “normal” of a pandemic-aware society.

An enterprise identity solution that also serves prevention is one that benefits workers, medical professionals and socially active people worldwide.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Austin, TX, USA

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Pilot: An organization deploying a tested product, service, or business model in at least one community

Who is the primary delegate for your solution?

Mary Haskett, Co-founder and CED, Blink Identity