"Plan to use facial recognition at JR East stations to spot ex-cons iced" 22 September 2021

East Japan Railway Co. has suspended a program to use facial recognition to track ex-convicts who turn up at its stations.

A company official said Sept. 21 the decision was made “because a social consensus has not yet been reached” on the issue.

JR East had announced on July 6 that it was beginning operations of a network of 8,359 security cameras at 110 of its major stations as well as power substations as a safety measure for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

But the company never revealed the details about what types of individuals would be monitored.

It now turns out that one element of the security package was to use facial recognition technology to automatically track former convicts or parolees who had at one time been suspected of plotting terrorist acts at train stations.

The photos of individuals arrested on such suspicions would have been inputted into JR East’s computer system, and the security cameras would have followed them if it detected their presence at a station. Station employees would also have been allowed to question them and even check their belongings.

Company officials conceded, however, that as of September, no photos of any former convicts or parolees had been inputted into the security program.

JR East decided to suspend the program after The Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Sept. 21 that the facial recognition system was designed to detect certain ex-convicts. 

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