"Kiosk mode" is an upcoming feature for our time tracking app (https://busybusy.com)
The elevator pitch is to make it so when the employee uses the device, the app can recognize who they are, and depending on how the organization has configured the app, either automatically clock them in or out, or just use the facial recognition as an authentication factor
Our focus is on construction related companies (CAT Ventures is one of our investors), where we've had demand for an old school feeling time clock experience, but with modernized features. Our app right now is oriented around each employee using a personal phone, but many job sites, especially with heavy equipment, don't want people carrying personal phones around.
You do know that most hourly jobs have you clock in and out either at a kiosk or computer? This is just using facial recognition instead of a password to clock in and out.
Why not time cards that are punched by a machine? The tech to scan them in for payroll already exists, I'm sure. Reminds me of the push for replacing paper ballots for no good reason.
I know a factory in Chicago that still has huge time-card punching machine from the late 1800's. It's enormous, and looks like a cast iron wheel of fortune. Very cool.
Somehow the company has managed to function for 150 years without adding facial recognition to it.
For the same reason some people want to use Machine Learning to do code reviews, rather than.. you know, have the team pair program and review each other. Providing solutions to problems nobody had. And making new businesses out of old ideas. Kinda like "url shortener in php" -> "url shorterer in nodejs" -> "url shortener in golang" -> "url shortener in rust" -> "url shortener serverless with aws lambda" -> the cycle goes on. New stars for old ideas. Newtimers excited, oldtimers cynical alike.
Having someone else clock in for your isn't always cheating. For example, leaving early so you can drop by the post office on your way home from work to drop off the company mail.
Or the opposite where my wife works: People will punch in for her because she has to go to an off-site meeting or event.
I used to think the same way. Recently I started my own consultancy business, and the first thing I did was write a small shell script to track my comings and goings - to the second, so that I'd have good billing data. It has saved me an amazing amount of bookkeeping, and I regret not doing this twenty years ago.
Previously, I spent I don't know how much time going "now, how long did I actually work last Monday?" whenever I've tried to figure out whether I've worked enough or not (there was, of course, a target hours/week in my contract when I was employed). Now I know, at the push of the button: I worked eight hours, sixteen minutes and three seconds. OK, then!
Sounds like fun tech, albeit creepy af. I can see the benefits of using facial recognition for employee tracking, but I hope employers understand that they're asking more from their employees than what's normal. I would consider requiring this tech to be an extraordinary breach of personal privacy, and the company would have to compensate extra for forcing me to use it.
If that's all factored in then sure, this could be pretty useful.
We'd tried it a few years ago and it was too unreliable, but now it's amazingly accurate.