Published: March 16, 2010

A company is offering a biometric alternative to the standard doorman employed at many of the metropolitan high-rise apartment and condominium complexes across the U.S., according to a Gothamist article.

The company, called Kent Security Services, calls the service a “virtual doorman” in which both face recognition and voice recognition are utilized to determine whether someone entering the building is a resident.

If that person is recognized by the system as a resident of the building, the door is unlocked, if not, they are prompted for voice recognition. If an individual not living there is at the door, Kent staffers intervene via phone to handle the situation. Despite roughly 30,000 doormen contracts expiring in New York in April, doormen union reps are not worried citing that machines are not yet capable of taking the place of all the facets of a doorman’s job.