Facial recognition to be used at Olympics

The 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo will be the first to introduce facial recognition technology at all venues, eliminating the risk of forged IDs.

A facial recognition system will be used across an Olympics for the first time as Tokyo organisers work to keep security tight and efficient at dozens of venues during the 2020 Games.

The NeoFace technology developed by NEC Corp. will be customised to monitor every accredited person - including athletes, officials, staff and media - at more than 40 venues, games villages and media centres, Olympic and company officials said on Tuesday.

Local organisers 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.

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 checkpoints.

NEC says its biometric identification technology is used at airports and elsewhere in 70 countries, including Japan.