No other country has faced this number of embarrassing hiccups like Japan has in the fight against delinquents. From hackable face-recognition software to vending machines fitted with CCTV cameras, all their recent efforts have drawn sharp criticism from the public.

First there was the gaffe involving the much hyped about age-verifying cigarette vending machines. Fitted with face recognition software, they were meant to detect their age by analyzing wrinkles, sagging skin and other tell-tale signs.

The idea, of course, was to prevent underage youth from purchasing cigarettes.

Just after the machines were opened to public in Osaka last year, a reporter from Sankei Sports news found a loophole in its software.

He discovered that by holding up another person’s photo, he was able to con the machine into selling him cigarettes.

What added insult to injury was his experiment with similar machines in Kobe.

Here, he fooled the machine using a magazine cut-out of a celebrity.

While Fujitaka, the brains behind this innovation, was attempting damage control, another more embarrassing goof-up was discovered by Sankei reporters.

These enterprising journalists tricked the machine using the portraits on the 1,000-yen and 10,000-yen notes on different occasions. These notes featured portraits of famous Japanese figures, namely Hideyo Noguchi and Yukichi Fukuzawa.

On these instances, the machines accepted either portrait as that of a real customer.

Consequently, the reporters paid for the cigarettes using these very notes!

In addition to face-recognition software, the local authorities’ more traditional methods of catching social deviants have also drawn fire from the public.

Late last year, they hooked up CCTV cameras, an alarm and an emergency phone to various types of vending machines.

It was hailed as a massive crime-fighting effort meant to safeguard the public.

In an unfortunate turn of events, a number of people likened this move to U.K.’s surveillance-happy mode and started criticizing the new machines.

In fact, in one extreme instance, a disgruntled member of the public destroyed the security camera and tagged the damaged machine with the words ‘Surveillance Society’.

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By shinigami on 11-10-2009