Developers change their faces – Newspaper Kommersant No. 172 (7373) of 09/19/2022

The developer of face recognition systems NtechLab plans to open an office in Thailand and expand its presence in Southeast Asia. Growth in demand for Russian solutions in Asian markets may be facilitated by the tightening of data security legislation in some countries. But a company in the region will face a number of challenges, experts warn, including local regulations, competition from Asian and American developers, and local mentality.

A Kommersant source in the IT market said that one of the largest Russian developers of face recognition systems NtechLab plans to open an office in Thailand by the end of the year and export its products to a number of countries in Southeast Asia: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines . “The company has formed a pool of partners from 20 vendors in these countries. Now several pilot projects have been launched in the region related to the introduction of face recognition systems, ”the Kommersant source said. NtechLab itself declined to comment.

Against the backdrop of Western sanctions, Russian software suppliers are increasingly interested in entering new markets, including Southeast Asia. Lev Matveev, Chairman of the SearchInform Board of Directors, notes that against the backdrop of a recent leak of personal data of 105 million Indonesians, for example, the government of this country decided to tighten laws with the protection of personal data: “Our solutions help to meet the requirements of local regulators, so business is interested in them” .

But work in the region is specific in terms of legislation. With the entry into the Asian market, according to Dmitry Peterson, COO of industrial software developer SimbirSoft, there may be problems related to the difference in security standards: “The requirements of the Federal Service for Technical and Export Control, 152-FZ “On Personal Data”, Europe – GDPR, in other regions – their different counterparts.

STC Group CEO Dmitry Dyrmovsky notes that presence in Asian markets requires significant investments, including product adaptation: “For example, we have already invested in the development of speech recognition technologies in Tagalog (Philippines), English with accents, Chinese ( Malaysia, Singapore).

Also, Lev Matveev clarifies, it is often “difficult for foreign buyers of Russian software to trust strangers,” so companies have to act through partners and local representatives. This may require time and additional funds. Birch Legal partner Anton Bakov agrees that in the region where NtechLab enters, personal connections are traditionally important, and in some cases their presence is critical: direct contact with a specific official, our client could not obtain a license to carry out the type of activity he needed for almost a year.”

The problem is also in the strong difference in mentalities, the lawyer adds, as well as the presence of “a large number of conventions and informal norms that must be taken into account in the work.”

Timofey Kornev, Nikita Korolev, Ekaterina Volkova