Face recognition time tracking that puts consent first

A timesheet records that hours were logged. It does not confirm who logged them. When your team works from their own computers, the person clocking in and the person you hired are not guaranteed to be the same. A colleague can start a shift for someone running late, and the hours still arrive, so nothing looks wrong.

Face recognition time tracking closes that gap. SCREENish checks, during tracked work sessions, that the person at the keyboard matches a photo you approved in advance. It runs inside the desktop time-tracking app your team already uses for screenshots and work logs, and never starts until the employee has agreed to it. The feature is currently in beta.

How face recognition time tracking works

Consent comes first

You send a consent request to an employee from your dashboard. It appears the next time they open their account, names your company, and explains the feature. If they accept, setup can begin. If they decline, the feature stays off and you cannot switch it on for them. Every answer is recorded with a date and kept.

The employee submits a photo, you approve it

After agreeing, the employee adds a reference photo from their own account. You confirm the face is clear, well lit and unmistakably theirs, then approve it, or reject it with a reason. Nothing is checked against an unapproved photo. The full walkthrough is in the face recognition how-it-works guide.

Sessions are verified as they are tracked

Once you enable the feature, SCREENish verifies during tracked sessions that the person working matches the approved photo. The result appears as a per-hour match rate in your work logs, next to the screenshots and activity data you already review.

Software, not a terminal on the wall

Traditional biometric time and attendance means a physical clock: a facial recognition time clock by the door that everyone files past at the start of a shift. That model does not fit a distributed team, and it means maintaining hardware for every location.

SCREENish is facial recognition time clock software instead of a device. There is no terminal to buy or mount. The camera is the webcam already on each computer, and the check happens while work is tracked rather than at a single clock-in moment. A face recognition attendance software rollout is a setting you enable per employee, not a purchase order and an installer.

Verify the person, prevent buddy punching

Buddy punching, one person clocking in for another, is the oldest problem in attendance tracking, and shared logins make it easy. As facial recognition employee time tracking, SCREENish ties the tracked hours to a specific approved face rather than to a password anyone can pass along. If hours are logged under someone else's face, the match rate shows it: you verify identity rather than trust a credential. The identity side of this is covered in our guide to remote employee identity verification.

GDPR-compliant face recognition attendance

A face is personal data, and SCREENish treats it that way. The consent model is built into how the feature runs, not added afterwards:

• Nothing runs without agreement. The check cannot be enabled until the employee accepts your request from their own account.
• Consent is per employer. Someone who works for several companies through SCREENish decides separately for each, and their photo is never shared across employers.
• Consent is withdrawable at any time from the employee's own settings.
• Every answer is dated and kept as documentation you can point to later.

If you employ people in the EU, GDPR-compliant face recognition attendance depends on exactly this: consent that is informed, specific, recorded and revocable. Your team keeps control of their own biometric data.

A match rate you set

Each employee with the feature enabled has a minimum acceptance rate, which you can set anywhere from 50 to 100 percent. Higher is stricter. Set it too high and ordinary things start failing honest checks: a dim room, new glasses, a hat. Most teams should leave it at the default and raise it only for a specific reason. A low hourly match rate is a reason for a conversation, not a verdict: cameras and lighting fail far more often than people do.

A broken webcam is not an accusation

A face verification time clock that cannot tell a hardware fault from evasion puts managers in an unfair position. SCREENish separates the two. When the camera does not deliver a usable picture, the work log shows a notice reporting how many checks were affected and when, with ordinary explanations such as another app holding the camera or a closed laptop lid. When the camera turns on but sends no video, a camera malfunction notice appears and the employee sees an on-screen prompt to restart, at most once every 30 minutes. Once the camera works again, checks resume on their own.

Frequently asked questions

What is face recognition time tracking?

Face recognition time tracking checks, during tracked work sessions, that the person working matches a photo the manager approved beforehand. In SCREENish, currently in beta, it runs inside the desktop time-tracking app and shows a per-hour match rate in your work logs.

Do employees have to agree before it is used?

Yes. It stays off until the employee accepts the employer's consent request from their own account, and cannot be enabled on their behalf. Consent is separate for each employer, can be withdrawn at any time, and every answer is dated.

Does it need a special time clock or terminal?

No. SCREENish is facial recognition time clock software, not a hardware device, so there is no terminal to buy or mount. It uses the webcam already on each computer, and you enable it per employee as a setting.

How does it help prevent buddy punching?

Because tracked hours are checked against a specific approved face rather than a shared password, hours logged under someone else's identity show a low match rate. That ties attendance to the person you approved rather than to a credential anyone can pass on.

What happens if a webcam fails during a shift?

The work log shows a notice reporting how many checks were affected and when, rather than treating the gap as evasion. If the camera turned on but sent no video, a camera malfunction notice appears and the employee gets an on-screen prompt to restart. When the camera works again, checks resume automatically.