Biometrics ID Solution（Facial Recognition）

Your face can be a pass : An ultra user-friendly entry system is in service!

Universal Studios Japan®, which opened in March 2001, is undoubtedly one of the largest and most famous theme parks in Japan. The number of annual visitors including those from outside Japan exceeds 8 million.

The park issues annual studio passes whereby holders of the passes are allowed unlimited entry into Universal Studios Japan® for one year. Demand for such passes has increased dramatically, and USJ Co., Ltd, which manages the park, was faced with a problem - how to improve their service for the holders.

"We used to manually process guest photos and card printing which was very labor-intensive and time-consuming. Sometimes they would have to wait even up to three hours because the process took so long," says Executive Officer and General Manager of Park Operations Division USJ Co., Ltd, Vernon Mcgugan.

This is where Universal Studio Japan started to consider using an access control system that utilized biometric technologies. After comparing and researching various kinds of biometrics systems, a decision was made to adopt one that was user-friendly and acceptable to people. NEC’s high speed, highly accurate and reliable facial recognition technology was judged to be indispensable to this system.

NEC is a pioneer in facial recognition technology. Since it started research in 1990, NEC has focused on improving speed and accuracy, and developed a unique facial recognition technology where computers recognize human faces in three or two-dimensions.

The access control system of Universal Studios Japan® uses NEC’s facial recognition engine named "NeoFace". It enables seamless processing all the procedures necessary to recognize faces, from detection to identification. With NEC’s unique methods, NeoFace extracts eye candidates from input pictures and detect the face area based on the position of the eyes. As NeoFace identifies face areas based on eye location regardless of other parts, it realizes precise collation even when some areas are hidden by eye-glasses or beards. As it processes as many as 1 million pictures per second, users can recognize faces at very high speed.

As described above, access control systems with NeoFace are easy to operate, less stressful and do not need special devices to take in data. Therefore, NeoFace can be applied to various kind of system with its scalability such as PC Log-In / Log-Out Control, Voting Control, Airport Security (Frequent Flyer Management, Immigration Control) and searching for lost children in recreational facilities. For service industries, it makes possible offering optimal services to customers who have registered in advance.

The Universal Studio Japan™’s access control system works as follows: At the ticket booth, guests receive an annual studio pass imprinted with a QR (Quick Response) code. Next, at the entrance, visitors register their facial photographs into the database by using the box shaped registration / identification device on the gate. From the next visit, registered visitors can enter the park just by touching the reader with their annual passes and turning their faces towards the recognition monitor. It takes approximately one second to check a face.

The park recognizes previous visitors every time they return.

With this access control system, the guests’ waiting time at the entrance is dramatically shortened. Thanks to this system, Universal Studios Japan® has been successful in cutting operating cost by 30%.

As Vernon Mcgugan puts it, "We felt that NEC had the best proposal, both from a technical standpoint and cost standpoint. And my experience with them in the past was they told us they could deliver on their product, and then it works from day one, so we’re very happy with them."

NEC aims to support Universal Studios Japan® not only in advanced initiatives, but also in realizing their innovative ideas aimed at making the visitor experience at the theme park comfortable and pleasant.