TOKYO - A Tokyo ward has installed outdoor AI cameras with facial recognition capabilities to help locate missing children and elderly people, a move aimed at improving public safety but also raising privacy concerns.
Arakawa Ward installed 33 artificial intelligence-equipped security cameras on utility poles along the main street and elsewhere near JR Nippori Station in April to test whether the technology could speed up searches for missing persons.
The busy area around the station is frequented by commuters, students and foreign residents.
If a child or elderly person with dementia goes missing, family members can ask the ward to conduct an AI-assisted search by providing a photograph. The AI then scans recorded footage for people closely matching the image.
The ward believes that this is the first outdoor deployment of AI facial recognition security cameras by a local Japanese government, and hopes that it will help to find missing people more quickly.
Police stations in Arakawa receive about 100 reports each year of missing children and elderly people with dementia. Until now, police officers and ward officials have searched on foot around train stations and other locations.
The footage is stored for seven days. Only a small number of staff have access via a dedicated computer in a locked room at the ward office, and officials say it is used solely to search for missing people.
AI-equipped security cameras are also being introduced elsewhere in Japan, but for different purposes.
Hyogo Prefecture and Tokyo's Adachi Ward plan to introduce cameras capable of detecting people lingering in entertainment districts in an effort to curb touting.
The use of facial recognition technology has prompted privacy concerns in Japan and overseas.
The European Union's AI Act prohibits the real-time collection of biometric data, including facial images, in public places for law enforcement purposes except in limited circumstances. It also bans the creation of facial recognition databases from video footage.
Under Japan's Act on the Protection of Personal Information, facial images are classified as personal information, and government agencies using facial recognition cameras must specify the purpose for which the data will be used.
Arakawa Ward says the cameras are used only to search for missing people and has posted signs beneath them stating that AI facial recognition cameras are in operation. But the notices are small, difficult to read and available only in Japanese.
"I was unaware AI was being used," said a female university student walking near one of the cameras. "I think it's a good initiative if it helps locate people who have gone missing."
A man in his 60s said he was less concerned by the cameras themselves than by how the technology might evolve.
"It doesn't bother me," he said. "But I worry that if it goes too far, it could lead to a surveillance society."
Arakawa Ward Mayor Gaku Takiguchi said the ward aimed to improve local safety and security while giving due consideration to the protection of personal information.
"Our goal is to improve local safety and security," he 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, called for the public to be given a sufficient explanation when such a system is installed in areas near stations that are frequently visited by large numbers of people, many of whom may not want their faces to be recorded without their consent.
"Efforts are needed to ensure passersby fully understand the purpose of the system's use," he said.
