Facial recognition may be the future of digital payments. A trial being run by Ant Financial Services Group, the financial payments arm of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., and Yum China will allow customers to use their face to pay for their meal.

The system, dubbed “Smile to Pay,” has gone into testing at KPRO, a KFC concept outlet in the coastal city of Hangzhou that serves salads, paninis and fresh juice instead of KFC’s traditional deep-fried chicken.

Diners order their meals via a large touchscreen computer, and when they go to pay, they enter their phone number and have their face scanned. The scan is compared to the picture recorded against the person’s Alipay account for verification.

The system has been designed specifically to detect facial features, meaning that attempts to cheat it are difficult. The system could accurately identify people even when they were wearing a disguise, such as makeup or a wig.

“Combined with a 3D camera and liveness detection algorithm, Smile to Pay can effectively block spoofing attempts using other people’s photos or video recordings and ensure account safety,” Jidong Chen, Ant’s director of biometric identification technology, said in a statement reported by The South China Morning Post.

China is said to be at the forefront of developing and using facial recognition technology. Ruled by a Communist government since 1950, China hasn’t had the same strict laws on the collection of biometric data as is the case in the United States and other western nations.

Ant Financial’s Alipay service is the largest mobile payment service in China, processing an amazing $1.7 trillion in payments in 2016. The company is attempting to expand its boundaries with a push into both Southeast Asia and the U.S., the latter to 4 million point-of-sale terminals through a deal announced with First Data Corp. in May.

Photo: Alibaba Group