CA Osasuna facial recognition feat

Article posted by Coliseum, June 28^th, 2022

Image: dasGate

CA Osasuna is the football team of Pamplona and the most important in Navarra (autonomous community of Spain). Founded in 1920, it is the 14^th best team in Spain, according to its historical track record.

Recently, it became the first LaLiga club to introduce the facial recognition system in their residence – the El Sadar Stadium.

The ‘dasGate’ stated that currently, Osasuna competes in LaLiga, the men’s top professional football division of the Spanish football league system.

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The El Sadar Stadium is a football stadium in Pamplona, Navarre, Spain. The stadium holds 23,576 people. It was built in 1967 and is the home of CA Osasuna. It is currently used mostly for football matches. The seating capacity of the facility increased and its membership reached 21,000.

Facial recognition

Club Atlético Osasuna, with the help of dasGate (security service in Spain), is the first LaLiga club to allow access to its stadium through facial recognition.

The ‘dasGate’ further stated that Osasuna launched the biometric facial access to its stadium on April 10^th in its match against the LaLiga 2 team Deportivo Alavés.

The above exercise was carried out at Gate 7 of El Sadar Stadium and the club tasted success. In the following home match against its peer team Real Madrid CF, the accesses were enabled at 8 gates (03, 07, 08, 10, 11, 16, 21, and 27).

The whole exercise has been planned in phases so that across all the gates of the El Sadar Stadium at least one facial recognition access turnstile would be available. It is up to the fans through which turnstile they would like to enter the stadium, always having the option of using the physical membership pass, the digital season ticket on their cell phone or biometric access.

This innovative access system, which helps Osasuna to provide digital teeth to the El Sadar Stadium, also prevents non-members from accessing the stadium and offers a better access experience to its members, faster, more comfortable, and safer.

Digital transformation

CA Osasuna members access El Sadar Stadium through their physical or digital membership pass. However, this system is inconvenient as it forces them to carry their credentials with them at all times. Access by physical credential usually requires the assistance of the club staff, causing queues to form at the turnstiles and slowing down the stadium ingress process.

Rigorous access control is part of the club’s policy to increase security at the El Sadar Stadium during every match. However, the current access system makes it difficult to authenticate whether the people entering the arena are genuinely the season ticket holders.

The facial recognition tech is providing CA Osasuna the opportunity to improve the access experience of its members and to continue its stride in the digitalization process of the El Sadar Stadium.

Smooth access

dasGate is an identity verification and access management platform that allows CA Osasuna members to access the stadium quickly, comfortably and securely, without the need to carry a physical membership pass.

To this end, members have enrolled in the system through their cellphone by following the steps provided: Taking a selfie, a photo of their physical membership pass and their ID card.

Once the enrollment process has been completed, the system will recognize the member for all the matches of the season without the need to repeat the process. In addition, if the member wishes to transfer his season ticket, he can continue to do so as before, transferring his card and accessing the turnstiles in the traditional way.

dasGate enables access to 20 people per minute which is an impressive number and generates an exceptional user experience, with nil waiting time and minus serpentine queues, and reassures the fact that the people making entry to the stadium are genuine membership pass holders.

The installation of dasGate is very simple. The company offers full integration with LaLiga’s access control system (AVET) and connects to any type of turnstile.

In addition, the platform provides a Web portal that allows the management and analysis of all accesses that take place in El Sadar Stadium through monitoring dashboards:

Business Intelligence dashboards;
Safety monitoring;
Operations dashboards;
Push and email notifications; and
Management of advertising on 10” screens of terminals.

Access experience

For CA Osasuna, the dasGate platform has improved the access experience for its members: Faster due to the reduction of queues and more comfortable as they are not obliged to carry their physical or digital membership passes.

dasGate’s result is a five-fold increase in the number of people entering through the facial recognition turnstiles compared to conventional turnstiles. The rate of entry through the gates enabled with the terminals is 20 people per minute, an unprecedented figure in fans accessing a stadium.

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