Face Recognition Technology Will Be Used at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Facial recognition technology is not a new technology. We have encountered this technology on smartphones and several other devices. But there is something a little surprising, reportedly the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will use face recognition technology to identify athletes, volunteers, media crews, and staff involved in this grand event.

“The Tokyo 2020 Olympics will use automatic face recognition technology, this is the first time for the Olympics and Paralympics, to prevent the entry of people who are not authorized,” said 2020 executive director of the Tokyo Olympic Security section Tsuyoshi Iwashita, quoted from Engadget.

The machine and facial recognition technology that will be used will be provided by an IT company from Japan, NEC. NEC calls face recognition technology that it uses based on a benchmark test from the National Institute of Standards and Technology of the United States.

NEC Vice President Masaaki Suanuma claimed that the accuracy of his facial recognition technology reached 99.7 per cent. He also emphasized that the figure was not influenced by the race and body size of the person whose face would be identified.

Unlike the previous Olympics, the Tokyo Olympics will not be centred in one area. Various matches will be scattered at several points in Tokyo, and the people involved must authenticate their identities in each place.

Face recognition technology is expected to accelerate this identity verification process. In addition to saving time, there are fears that the Olympics which are planned to be held at the end of June 2020 in Tokyo will become an Olympics with the hottest weather in the last century, given Japan’s extremely hot temperatures in the same period this year.

The officials in the organizational structure of the 2020 Shop Olympics welcomed this innovation. They believe face recognition technology will improve security during the Olympics because it can prevent people who are not responsible for entering the competition area by borrowing or taking other people’s identity cards.