Guess the age through wrinkles

A Japanese company is developing an automatic vending machine that can rely on wrinkles and facial contours to determine the age of the drug buyer.

(Photo: info-france-usa.org)

The company plans to use face detection technology to prevent people under the legal age (20 years) from buying cigarettes.

Since July, auto cigarette vendors will be sued if cigarettes are sold to underage people.

Buyers who do not pass age checks will need to show ID cards to confirm they are age-smoking.

Fujitaka's system will match facial features, including bone structure, skin elasticity, and crow's feet, on data from more than 100,000 people.

"With facial recognition technology, the status of ID card purchases for cigarettes will be eliminated," said Hajime Yamamoto, a spokeswoman for Hajime Yamamoto .

The company said the system correctly guessed 9 out of 10 cases. The remaining 10% will be placed in the "adult face" category , where the buyer will be required to insert an ID card or driver's license.

Japan has 570,000 automatic cigarette vending machines. The 2004 survey found that 14% of children and 4% of daughters aged 17-18 still smoke daily.