The 2020 Olympics Will Use Facial Recognition on Every Athlete

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will deploy a facial recognition system to identify more than 300,000 athletes, staff, volunteers, and journalists at the games. It's the first time that facial recognition technology will be used for security at the Olympics. The planned system is supposed to address several unique security considerations for the upcoming games. Unlike many previous Olympics, Tokyo will not have a centralized Olympic Park in which athletes and others can travel freely between the main facilities--instead, the 2020 Games will be spread out across the Tokyo metropolitan area. Given that setup, people will need to authenticate their identities at more than 40 venues across the city, which could potentially lead to longer wait times to enter the facilities.