Chinese home sharing site Xiaozhu to roll out facial recognition-enabled smart locks in Chengdu pilot scheme

Xiaozhu, China’s answer to Airbnb, plans to step up the introduction of facial recognition-enabled smart door locks to help verify the identities of tenants as part of a broader effort to improve safety and security in the country’s booming home sharing industry.

The six-year-old company, which runs one of China’s biggest home-sharing sites, said on Monday it plans to install facial recognition-enabled door locks in 80 per cent of its listings in southwest China’s Chengdu city, its second largest market by revenue, over the next year.

Apart from wider adoption of “face-scan check-in” to verify user’s identities, Xiaozhu announced other measures to upgrade safety and security, including equipping more apartments with smoke detectors, gas alarms and burglar alarms. It is also setting up a blacklist of tenants who misbehave during their stay at hosts’ homes.

“Years ago, what we worried about the most was that people didn’t want to share their homes with strangers. Now, home-sharing has become an industry so we need to do more to address the concerns of all parties involved,” said Kelvin Chen Chi, chief executive of the Beijing-based Xiaozhu.

The plan to improve safety and security is in line with the Chinese government’s tighter control over home-sharing, mainly for state security reasons. Zhejiang is the first province in the country that will require all home-sharing platforms and short-term rental firms to submit information on apartments for rent, including host and guest names, to the local public security authority, starting from January 1.