Viva Republica, operator of Toss, is joining hands with the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency in a public-interest partnership to protect vulnerable people such as missing children, elderly people and patients with dementia and to prevent transnational crime.

Toss said on Monday it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency to protect vulnerable people such as missing children, elderly people and patients with dementia and to prevent transnational crime.

The agreement was designed to use Toss' face-recognition biometric authentication solution FacePass and its payment terminal, Toss Front, as public-interest channels to help find missing people and support their safe return.

Under the agreement, the two sides will cooperate on posting promotional content to prevent disappearances of children, elderly people and patients with dementia, displaying missing-person information when alerts are issued, encouraging discovery and reporting of missing people using FacePass and Toss Front, and jointly planning public-interest projects to protect vulnerable people and prevent transnational crime.

They will build the system in phases and plan to discuss ways to use FacePass to verify missing people during the process. They will also pursue public campaigns and awareness-raising activities to prevent disappearances.

The cooperation project will be implemented first in the Daejeon area. Toss and the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency plan to expand the scope of cooperation based on operating results.

Daejeon police chief Baek Dong-heum (백동흠) said he hopes it will raise public vigilance against transnational crime and broaden interest in finding missing people. He added he will do his best to ensure the public-private cooperation model can be expanded nationwide based on a successful first step in Daejeon.

Toss Vice President Kim Gyu-ha (김규하) said Toss' authentication technology and terminal infrastructure are a meaningful starting point for contributing to everyday public safety beyond payments.