By George Brostoff, CEO, SensibleVision

I don’t have a crystal ball, and I can’t tell you what life will look like after the first wave of COVID-19 recedes from North America. I don’t know when a cure or a vaccine will be available, and I don’t know when we will all be able to go back to our regularly scheduled lives. But I do know that retail is never going to be the same again, thanks to the fusion of smart public health policies and technologies to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other pandemics. And it’s all about reducing unnecessary contact between people and contaminated surfaces.

This is the world that we will inhabit beginning this summer. We’ll be allowed to leave our homes to some degree, but many cities have already announced longer-term restrictions on large gatherings. Toronto’s mayor announced in March that all event permits will be revoked until the end of June, which is several weeks after the initial wave of COVID-19 cases is expected to drop. These limitations will also apply to retail stores. We don’t know whether the two-metre zone will still be enforced, or whether Ontario’s cannabis stores will still only be allowed to sell via click-and-collect, but it is very unlikely that we’ll go back to the way we were on March 1.

This is where hands-free shopping will not be a luxury, but a necessity, as stores reopen. The intrinsic problem with stores isn’t that they're crowded; it’s that hundreds or thousands of people are required to all touch the same surfaces and objects. Cash is already banned in many outlets, and Canadian banks have upped the limit on PIN-less transactions to minimize physical contact with payment pads. But even that reduction in touch points may not be enough to ensure public safety. And as long as retail stores are not seen as safe, they won’t be able to fully reopen and get back into the world of black ink.

So, what does a touch-free retail experience look like? Simply put, every physical interaction involving technology needs to be replaced with one that can be done at a safe distance. That means replacing traditional check-out lines with systems that can identify shoppers and automatically debit funds without risking the exposures caused by handling cash or presenting physical cards. Think of it as a digital wallet with a facial-recognition component that uses a camera to pair customers with their preferred digital payment platforms.

The best part of this idea is that every bit of the technology that’s needed to make it a reality exists right now. Creating a personal 3D identification image is easy because Apple has been doing it for more than two years. In fact, this approach to security has been used commercially for almost 20 years. At the store end, the kiosks and cameras needed to verify shoppers have also been used for things like cheque cashing since the late 1990s.

Over the last two decades, the technology has gotten faster, smaller, and cheaper, and today it would be very cost-effective for stores to roll out their own biometric-powered systems. And given where our world is today, that may not just be a cool idea: it may be the only option.

George Brostoff is CEO of SensibleVision, which makes facial-recognition software. Brostoff has seven U.S. patents and has developed technology used by Dell and other major companies. He can be reached at gbrostoff@sensiblevision.com.

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