Age verification cameras conned by Magazine photos

Japan’s all new cigarette vending machine age verification system is not perfect after-all. The minor flaw confirmed by a Sankei sports news reported is that the age verification cameras on some machines could be fooled by magazine photos. When he went to Osaka area in June, he soon discovered that the machines equipped with face-recognition cameras would let him buy cigarettes when he held up a 15-centimeter (6-in) wide magazine photo of a man who looked to be in his 50’s. A similar incident also occurred in Kobe region where another reporter tried the same stunt, this time posing with an 8-centimeter (3-in) wide magazine photo of a female celebrity in her 30’s. Off late most of Japan’s 570,000 cigarette vending machines are being outfitted with RFID readers that check that verify the purchaser’s Taspo cards, and the ones without these cards would have to buy their cigarettes at the counter or use one of 4,000 special machines equipped with face recognition systems.

The face recognition machines are programmed to scan the purchaser’s face for wrinkles, sagging skin and other signs of age and these facial characteristics are compared with the database of more than 100,000 other people to determine if the purchaser’s age is well above 20 years (legal age), and if found so, the sale is approved. If the purchaser looks too young, they are requested to insert a driver’s license. Fujitaka, the manufacturer of these machines, says, the machines are 90% accurate and people would be successful at fooling the vending machines for the time being, nevertheless, the company is working on a more advanced system to obliterate this shortcoming.

Via - Newlaunches