Panasonic Corporation is to provide additional automated facial recognition gates for use at airports across Japan.
Panasonic’s automated facial recognition gates were first chosen by the Immigration Services Agency of Japan’s Ministry of Justice in October 2017, and 137 units have since been put into operation at five major airports across the country (Tokyo Haneda, Tokyo Narita, Nagoya Chubu Centrair, Osaka Kansai, and Fukuoka). Beginning at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on July 24, 2019, another 66 units will begin operation at seven airports, including Sapporo New Chitose, in mid-November, and Okinawa Naha Airport, in early July 2020. The new order brings the number of automated gates in Japan to 203, 123 of them be used for foreign nationals.
Without the need for prior registration of biometric data, the system verifies the passenger’s identity by comparing photographic data of their face in the integrated circuit (IC) chip embedded in the passport with an image taken at the facial recognition gate.
The gates offer intuitive usability thanks to the ergonomic design and sophisticated technology of their passport readers, and their high-performance facial recognition engine can deal with appearance-altering variations such as aging, makeup, facial expression, and image quality. The gates’ spatial design also enables optimum arrangement in a limited space.
Panasonic is also working to provide solutions for users in the private sector, by combining its passport and facial recognition technologies.