Japan’s recently been getting serious about underage smoking, with the launch of the Taspo ID card for vending machines and experiments in Kansai using face-recognition technology. However, in addition to the predictable issues with people using others’ cards (including one enterprising operator who attached a card to his machine for people who hadn’t got one), it now transpires that an 8-cm magazine photo is all you need to fool the face recognition. The maker is working on a version that needs bio-recognition of some kind, though Slashdot commenters note that even systems that compare several image frames to avoid being duped by stills don’t actually work as yet. And as another commenter notes, wouldn’t it be simpler to do away with machines and just sell over the counter?
JapanSoc
