Tokyo Ward Deploys Outdoor Facial Recognition Cameras to Find Missing People

A Tokyo ward has installed outdoor security cameras with AI facial recognition to help find missing children and elderly people with dementia, in what officials believe is the first outdoor deployment of the technology by a local government in Japan.

Arakawa ward installed 33 AI-equipped cameras in April on pylons along the main street and other locations near JR Nippori Station, a busy area used by commuters, students, and foreign residents. When a child or an elderly person with dementia goes missing, family members can ask the ward to run an AI-assisted search by providing a photograph, and the system scans recorded footage for close matches. Police stations in Arakawa receive about 100 reports of missing children and elderly people with dementia each year, and until now officers and ward officials have searched on foot around stations and other locations.

The ward has built constraints around the system: footage is stored for seven days, access is limited to a small number of staff through a dedicated computer in a locked room at the ward office, and officials say the cameras are used solely to search for missing people. Signs beneath the cameras state that AI facial recognition is in operation, though Kyodo reported that the notices are small and available only in Japanese. Under Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information, facial images are personal information, and government agencies using facial recognition must specify the purpose for which the data will be used.

“Our goal is to improve local safety and security,” Arakawa Mayor Gaku Takiguchi told a news conference. “We intend to operate the system with due regard for personal information.” Harumichi Yuasa, a professor of information law at Meiji University, said the public should be given a sufficient explanation when such systems are installed in heavily trafficked areas, where many passers-by may not want their faces recorded without consent.

Japan has grown accustomed to facial recognition in controlled settings, where the country has expanded face recognition gates across its major airports, but scanning passers-by in public space puts the technology into the contested territory of live facial recognition, where even supportive governments have faced independent scrutiny of accuracy and bias, as in the UK National Physical Laboratory’s study.

Other Japanese authorities are eyeing different uses for camera intelligence, with Hyogo prefecture and Tokyo’s Adachi ward planning systems that detect people lingering in entertainment districts to curb touting.

Sources: South China Morning Post

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By the ID Tech Editorial Team