Abstract: THE present invention discloses a system and method for automatically detecting the presence of a user in a presence application connected to a video conference endpoint. The presence detection is provided by active detection mechanisms monitoring the localities near the endpoint or terminal connected to the application. The presence information is centrally stores in a presence server collecting the information directly from the respective user terminals. According to preferred embodiments of the present invention, presence is determined by means of radar detection, infrared light detection, motion search in the video processing to the codec in the and face detection/recognition.