Hello, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Today I am slapping on dramatic face paint to stop Big Brother watching me.

I look like a kind of urban warrior figure like I'm wearing some kind of war paint except this is bright red, bright blue and let's see, does the camera see I'm here?

Actually, I'm not.

Facial recognition cameras are everywhere these days. Should we be scared?

It's very easy to say, you know, there's a significant public interest in that you can stop crime,

fraudulent transactions by using biometrics, but you have to have

incredibly strong regulation to stop it being misused.

That's all to come in Business Daily on the BBC World Service.

A couple of years ago, I witnessed a new form of payment technology being pioneered in China,

alongside a local student, Cindy.

So we are going to step forward now and buy some food using Cindy's face.

Yeah.

We stepped up to this screen. It looks like a large smartphone.

Do you know what you want to buy?

Yeah, I want to buy a salad.

And this is the facial recognition part.

She looks up at the camera and it ticks.

It's literally your face is your code.

It's amazing.

I think it's quite funny.

You like it?

Yeah. Let's be honest, Cindy. You could have done that just as quickly

...