The Tokyo 2020 Olympic committee recently announced they would enhance security measures, more specifically facial recognition. Ensuring more safety is not the only reason – this will help speed up security lines for participants too.
Facial recognition is necessitated by the record heat wave anticipated at the upcoming Olympics. Around 300,000 accredited individuals, among whom officials, athletes, press, and staff, are expected to attend the games in the summer of 2020. Pictures of their faces will all be stored in a database and matched upon entry.
This will enable quick entry to venues, which will be required in the intense heat according to the Chief of Security at the upcoming games. The software is provided by NEC Corporation.
According to him, the modern technology will enable strict identification of accredited individuals compared with relying exclusively on security staff’s eyes and memory. He added that the measures would detect forgery, spoofing, and the use of lost or stolen credentials.
Organizers are currently facing dangerous heat waves in Japan, which makes it even more important to keep lines short during the summer games. Since the end of April this year, the heat has killed 138 people in Japan, and 70,000 have been hospitalized.
Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun reported that the Japanese government was considering moving the time two hours forward next summer to counteract heat as a test prior to the Olympic games.
Temperatures have been more than 10 degrees higher than the average for summer this year. The city of Kumagaya, a short drive from Tokyo, registered the record 41 degrees (105.8F) for the country.