Notes Design

As part of a nationwide effort to upgrade Japan's 570,000 cigarette vending machines with an age-verification system, 4,000 special machines will be fitted out with a face recognition camera that can determine if you're over the age of 20 (the legal purchasing age) based on a database of more than 100,000 faces.

Various face recognition hardware is currently being tested in Osaka and Kobe. One Japanese reporter was able to trick 2 machines using full page photos from a magazine, one of a man in his 50's and one of a female celebrity in her 30's. He was rejected though when trying to use a 1 inch (3cm) wide photo.

Most of the vending machines will require the purchaser to have a Taspo age-verification card, without one your only option will be to buy cigarettes over the counter or try your luck with one of the machines that offers the face recognition option. Something tells us getting your hands on a fake ID that no-one physically has to look at will be pretty easy!

view article: pinktentacle.com