HID has announced the North American availability of its HID Amico biometric facial recognition readers, expanding its biometric portfolio with a solution designed to make facial recognition access control more accessible for small and medium-sized businesses.

The launch comes as facial biometrics become increasingly practical for everyday access control applications beyond high-security government facilities and critical infrastructure. According to HID, advances in edge processing, artificial intelligence and sensor technology have improved performance while reducing deployment complexity and costs, allowing more organizations to adopt biometric authentication.

Designed for physical access control, HID Amico is available in 3.5-inch and 7-inch touchscreen models and is intended for offices, healthcare facilities, educational campuses, commercial buildings and other high-traffic environments. The readers are designed to allow authorized users to move through entrances without stopping to present a credential, improving throughput while strengthening identity verification.

"Organizations no longer have to choose between stronger security and a seamless user experience," said Sally Reitan, Director of Product Marketing, PACS NAM at HID. "Facial biometrics have reached a point where they're practical for a much wider range of organizations. HID Amico gives customers an affordable way to deploy friction-free access while maintaining the flexibility to support cards, mobile credentials, PINs and QR codes as their identity strategies evolve, so they can adopt biometrics on their own terms."

HID Amico supports five authentication methods: facial recognition, physical credentials, PINs, QR codes and HID Mobile Access. The company said the multi-modal approach allows organizations to introduce biometric authentication gradually while continuing to support existing credential technologies.

The readers also feature a privacy-focused architecture with optional Template-on-Card technology, which stores biometric templates on a user's credential rather than in a centralized database.

In addition to authentication, the larger 7-inch model supports on-screen interactions such as visitor guidance, organizational messaging and branded experiences, enabling organizations to use access points for broader building engagement.

HID said Amico is designed to complement existing access control systems rather than replace them, allowing organizations to deploy biometric authentication at selected entrances and expand as operational requirements change.

The HID Amico biometric facial recognition readers are now available throughout North America through authorized HID partners.