The decision was made in order to improve the authorities’ ability to detect terrorists and to control the immigration, since Japan will be an often visited country during the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Some airports, like Narita or Haneda, already have a passport control system of photographing the faces of incoming foreigners and the new facial recognition system will allow those photos to be compared instantly against images of terrorists.
The fingerprints are already in use within the passport control process. The Justice Ministry has created a centre for handling intelligence which gathers information names, ages and nationalities of incoming passengers as well as places they had visited prior to boarding the aircraft. When it comes to terrorism, the authorities think photos are usually the only available information, thus, the new system should improve the state security.
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