At the end of last year, the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo hosted the so-called ExpoCristiana, a commercial event which offers concerts of Christian music, samples of evangelical publishers and even virtual simulations of episodes of the Bible. One of the most striking products was the one offered by the artificial intelligence company Kuzzma under the slogan “Change the way you manage your church”. The company presented a facial recognition service especially aimed at churches. On the first day of ExpoCristiana, Marcelo Scharan, executive director of Kuzzma, gave a conference entitled Personalization, data and churches.
“Data such as gender, age, attendance, arrival time, likely reasons for being late, and many others are analyzed and presented in reports. We can even define if someone needs a pastoral visit”, Scharan said. According to the Kuzzma website, facial recognition works from a high-resolution panoramic camera installed in the churches, that identifies both personal data and the attendance to the worship service. Then, with all that data, they make reports of each person, which include statistics on their behavior and even warnings if there is any abnormal activity. The Brazilian company Igreja Mobile was also selling the facial recognition service at the fair.