"From the moment you arrive at the airport to when you reach the boarding lounge, it takes barely 10 minutes," said Vincent Bouatou, describing how quickly it is possible to board a plane in Singapore without showing a passport or boarding pass. According to Bouatou, the technology director of French group Idemia Public Security, this is made possible by iris biometrics and facial recognition.

"What they have done at Changi is unmatched anywhere in the world," he said, proud of his company's expertise in the field. The city-state could offer his group further opportunities. "Every day, many cross-border commuters travel back and forth by motorbike between Singapore and Malaysia," he added. "For motorcyclists, removing their gloves takes a while."

This is happening in Singapore, but also in China, the Gulf states and the United States. Whether in airports, transportation, border control, solving criminal cases and much more, facial recognition has, over the years, become increasingly normalized worldwide. Market forecasts reflect this trend: major groups like Panasonic, NEC, Thales and Microsoft often compete discreetly, and the sector could reach $18 billion (€15.4 billion) by 2030, up from $8 billion today, according to several consulting firms.

On the plus side, scanning a face can be done on the fly, more smoothly and conveniently than collecting fingerprints or encoding an iris. On the downside, it is also "the most highly sensitive" biometric data, as France's data privacy authority, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), highlighted. "If your credit card is stolen, the bank can give you a new code. But if your biometric identity is hacked, you cannot change your face," said Thomas Dautieu, CNIL's director of legal support.

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