Now vending machines will recognize whether you are an under age person trying to buy cigarettes. I am sure very soon we will see face recognition as our password on laptops and phones. It is only a very natural thing to happen.
In these applications, we are dealing with face reognition in context. And luckily most practitioners, unlike most academicians, are not obsessed with developing techniques that will not use context. And context can really simplify application environment significantly by converting the task to verify one of only a few alternatives and thus making it practical.