The Pokemon Company will use facial recognition to control entry and ticket distribution at five temporary Pokemon Card Stores opening across Japan. Customers of elementary-school age and older must accept the biometric check as a condition of entering a store or receiving a numbered admission ticket.
The pop-ups will operate from July 31 through August 16 at AEON Mall Natori, Chofu PARCO, AEON Mall Higashiura, AEON Mall Hiroshima Fuchu and AEON Mall Chikushino. They will sell Pokemon Trading Card Game products and selected Pokemon Center merchandise alongside free teaching events.
The system is intended to enforce a limit of one entry or one admission ticket per person each day. If it detects that the same person has entered more than once or received multiple tickets, an alert will appear and staff will deny entry based on the system’s determination.
Children below elementary-school age are exempt from facial recognition, although they must enter with a guardian. Other customers who do not consent to the system or the associated entry rules will not be admitted or given a ticket.
The company says it will collect each covered visitor’s facial image data and visit count. It promises to store the information securely, use it only for the stated purposes and delete it promptly after a specified period, but the public notice does not state how long that period will be.
The official notice describes the purposes as providing a safe shopping environment, preventing crime and ensuring compliance with entry and purchase rules. Specialist Pokemon outlets have characterized the measure as an anti-scalping control because the daily limit makes repeat purchases by the same person more difficult.
The deployment brings biometric access control into a consumer setting frequented by children. Japan has also seen commercial facial recognition services prepared for broader domestic rollout, while retailers in other markets have adopted the technology for security and watchlist matching.
In the United States, for example, Wegmans has used facial recognition at a small number of stores to identify people previously linked to alleged misconduct. The Pokemon system has a different operational purpose: it compares visitors across the same day to enforce a stated entry rule rather than publicly describing a criminal watchlist.
The temporary-store notice was originally posted in 2024 and updated with the facial recognition rules on July 24. The biometric controls apply to all five locations during the upcoming operating period.
Sources: Pokemon Card Game, PokeBeach
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
