Japan tests anti-terrorism surveillance cameras in subway station

DPA
May. 02, 2006

The Japanese government said Tuesday that it has begun a test run of surveillance cameras in Tokyo to monitor commuters as an anti-terrorism measure.

Faces of commuters are to be compared with files of terrorists or wanted criminals. When the system detects a facial match, an alarm is to go off.

But people concerned with protection of privacy have been opposing even the system's trial run.

The trial period from Monday to May 19 is using two videocameras and is to assess the technical quality of the system, said the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry.

The two cameras mounted at a ticket gate in a central Tokyo subway station are in use an hour every day during the test run to monitor about 30 volunteer subjects.

The volunteers are to wear different outfits as well as sunglasses or face masks and go through the gate en masse to measure the cameras' identification capabilities.

The system is running at the Kasumigaseki subway station, where most of the government offices are located. The station and surrounding subway lines were targeted by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in its sarin gas attack of 1995, which killed 12 people and injured more than 5,000.

More than 125,000 commuters pass through the Kasumigaseki subway station every day, according to government data.