News in Brief

Face ID at World Cup 2022

In November 2022, the footballing eyes of the world will be on Qatar, as it plays host to the first World Cup to be held in an Arab country. The country has spent billions of dollars on building seven new stadiums and refurbishing an eighth, and is taking no chances when it comes to safety and security.

Supporters will have first gone through a filtering process when they applied for tickets, with identities matching a watch list barred from receiving any.

Fans will be followed on Doha streets by omnipresent CCTV cameras armed with facial recognition technology. Qatar University experts have developed drone surveillance systems that, they say, will give the most accurate estimates of numbers on the streets.