A facial recognition system will be used across an Olympics for the first time as Tokyo organizers work to keep security tight and efficient during the 2020 Games.
The NeoFace technology, developed by NEC Corp., will not be used on spectators.
Instead, it will be customized to monitor athletes, officials, staff and media at over 40 venues, games villages and media centers.
The system was officially unveiled by Olympic and company officials on Tuesday.
A staff demonstrates a new face recognition system used for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games during a press conference in Tokyo Tuesday
Local organizers said Tokyo will be the first Olympic host to introduce the face recognition technology at all venues.
The system is expected to effectively eliminate entry with forged IDs, reduce congestion at accredited waiting lines and reduce athletes’ stress under hot weather.
It uses an AI engine called NeoFace, which is a version of NEC’s range of biometric authentication technologies.
Tsuyoshi Iwashita, Tokyo 2020 executive director of security, said venues that are spread within and outside of the capital would be a big burden in achieving high levels of security.
Unlike other years, events during the Tokyo games will be spread out around the city, instead of being contained to a single Olympic park.
‘By introducing the face recognition system, we hope to achieve high levels of safety, efficiency and smooth operation at security check points before entry,’ Iwashita said, adding that the system would contribute to less stressful environment for athletes.
The NeoFace technology developed by NEC Corp. will be used across the Olympics for the first time as Tokyo organizers work to keep security tight and efficient at dozens of venues
The system is expected to effectively eliminate entry with forged IDs, reduce congestion at accredited waiting lines and reduce athletes’ stress under hot weather
NEC used a six-foot-eight former Olympic volleyball player to demonstrate that the technology works on people of all heights, the Verge said.
Masaaki Suanuma, vice president of NEC, noted that the technology was accurate 99.7 percent of the time. He added that the ‘number will not change’ if users have different nationalities or are different heights.
The Games kick off on July 24th, 2020, so temperatures are expected to be hot, emphasizing the need for efficiency so that athletes and personnel don’t have to wait in uncomfortable conditions.
Iwashita said a test last year showed gate checks using the facial recognition was more than twice the pace of the conventional system using X-ray with visual siting by security guards.
Guests and staff members demonstrate a new face recognition system used for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games during a press conference in Tokyo
The facial images of every accredited person for the Olympics and Paralympics will be collected after the approval process and stored in a database to be used to verify identities at accreditation check points.
NEC says its biometric identification technology is used at airports and elsewhere in 70 countries, including Japan.
The company also tested the system during the 2016 Rio Olympics.
HOW DOES FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY WORK?
Facial recognition software works by matching real time images to a previous photograph of a person.
Each face has approximately 80 unique nodal points across the eyes, nose, cheeky and mouth which distinguish one person from another.
A digital video camera measures the distance between various points on the human face, such as the width of the nose, depth of the eye sockets, distance between the eyes and shape of the jawline.
A smart surveillance system (pictured) that can scan 2 billion faces within seconds has been revealed in China. The system connects to millions of CCTV cameras and uses artificial intelligence to pick out targets
This produces a unique numerical code that can then be linked with a matching code gleaned from a previous photograph.
A facial recognition system used by officials in China connects to millions of CCTV cameras and uses artificial intelligence to pick out targets.
Experts believe that facial recognition technology will soon overtake fingerprint technology as the most effective way to identify people.