JR East suspends facial recognition system after scope creep is revealed

East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) used thousands of facial recognition-enabled cameras in metro stations across Tokyo to identify criminals, prompting concerns about privacy.

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, the company's Victim Notification Service, which informed victims of crime of the identity of their attacker, came under fire from privacy advocates concerned that the system may not be accurate and should not include released convicts and parolees.

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.

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