Vending Eyes

Japan lags the US and others in its use of digital signs, but is pioneering the use of displays that can identify passers-by and track their response, report Daisuke Wakabayashi and Juro Osawa in the Wall Street Journal (9/3/10). For example, a beverage vending machine in the Shinagawa train station in Tokyo is equipped with a camera and sensor that can determine a customer’s age and gender, and then recommend an appropriate drink.

"With this machine, we can actually see who is buying what, instead of relying on educated guesses," says Toshinari Sasagawa of East Japan Railway, a subsidiary of which operates the machines. In Japan, there’s no law requiring disclosure of such surveillance, but a note is posted on the machines to let people know they’re being watched. People are not individually identified and the images aren’t stored.

East Japan Railway says it hasn’t received any complaints, but Yasuhiko Tajima of the Campaign Against Surveillance Society, says that’s not good enough. "The problem is that there’s no clear regulation that prohibits those signage systems from storing images," he says. Japan accounted for "8 percent of all public-display shipments" in 2009, "compared with 41 percent for North America … But the Japanese market is expected to double this year versus versus growth rates of 17 percent for North America."