JR East facial recognition system prompts privacy row

The use of thousands of facial recognition-enabled cameras to identify criminals in metro stations across Tokyo prompted concerns about privacy.

East Japan Railway Co. (JR East), Japan's largest passenger rail company, used facial recognition at 110 major railway stations and other facilities in the Tokyo metropolitan area during the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics to identify released criminals, wanted suspects and people acting suspiciously.

However, it was later revealed that the system's database included images of ex-prisoners, parolees, wanted suspects, and individuals behaving suspiciously - an expansion of the system's scope to monitor specific individuals, especially those who had already served their sentences. 

The fracas also triggered a public debate about privacy and the unregulated use of such technology in public spaces.

JR East suspended the addition of released prisoners to its database on the basis of 'insufficient social consensus building', though it continued to feed facial data about people acting suspiciously into the system’s database.