TU-Auto Japan: No Tipping, No Privacy

Delegates arriving from out of town to attend the TU-Auto Japan event at the Tokyo Westin this week may discover their privacy being violated as soon as they enter a taxi to tool around town. A rearseat-mounted tablet with a built-in camera immediately commences scanning the passenger seated in front of the display.

A disclaimer announces (see above):

"This taxi tablet is using a face recognition system with an image received from the tablet's front camera. The image is used to estimate gender in order to deliver the most optimized content. The gender estimation runs once at the beginning of the advertisement program and the image data is discarded immediately after the estimation processing. Neither the tablet nor the server records the data."

Some further details appear in this report in the MailOnline: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6951727/Tokyo-taxis-use-facial-recognition-guess-riders-age-gender-targeted-advertisements.html

I have no doubt that this system has been introduced in the best interests of the passenger - taking the stated intention of delivering gender-appropriate advertising content as genuine. The complex implications and reality of this proposition are, nevertheless, deeply troubling. Let's take them on, one at a time.

Privacy

The average taxi passenger will most likely prefer to be left unmolested while in the back seat on his or her way to a destination. Rearseat ads are a mild annoyance, but a rearseat ad that proclaims its intention to identify the passenger's gender in support of an advertising agenda is an unwelcome intrusion to say the least.

Advertisers and taxi operators are subject to the same privacy protection obligations now being codified in the E.U. and in California in the U.S. These privacy provisions are not limited by geographic boundaries - and, indeed, the stated protocol of the Japan taxi system of not storing information suggests appropriate hygiene.

What is missing, though, is the opportunity to opt out entirely. It is true that, as with most such systems, the passenger can turn the system off completely. But the privacy intrusion is involuntary. That's a problem.

Gender Identification

The Japanese creator of this annoying system can be forgiven for not understanding or failing to anticipate concerns that passengers may have regarding automated gender identification of any kind - even one as seemingly benign as advertising targeting. Japan's famous societal homogeneity might seem ideally suited to what might be assumed to be a binary automated gender identification process.

The rearseat taxi system, though, fails to disclose the full scope of its gender identification or even which gender has been identified. The whole process is offensive and a marketing fail that ought to tarnish any advertised participation in the proposition.

No Difference

A non-scientific anecdotal assessment of a half dozen taxi rides in Tokyo with my wife suggests that there is actually no difference in the variety of ads delivered based on the gender identification. In effect, the system introduces a creepy privacy intrusion in support of a limited advertising inventory that doesn't appear to lend itself to differentiated content based on gender.

Cameras Everywhere

The rearseat camera promises not to store any information and, in fact, notes that all info is erased. What is not disclosed or made clear is the scope of information gathered by the camera mounted in the front seat and facing into the rearseat. This camera is presumably added to the vehicle for driver safety, driver monitoring, and possibly fraud prevention and forensic purposes in the event of a crash.

It seems that a disclosure statement regarding the in-cabin camera in the frontseat may be even more important than the disclosure preceding the passenger scan in the rearseat. I have yet to see one, while I often see in-cabin cameras in taxis throughout the world.

Law Enforcement

It seems fairly clear that this rearseat passenger-scanning-ad-delivery solution functions precisely as stated with no storage of information. It seems, though, as is often the case with such systems that it is only a matter of time before law enforcement analysis in connection to crimes committed in or near taxis leads to the discovery of a failure to delete all information. To be acceptable, the system ought to add a higher degree of transparency and/or a simple opt out process.

What's Next?

Taxi operators around the world have long been seeking creative alternative ways to monetize their passenger transporting platforms. Taxi passengers are ripe targets for targeted ads, offers, and information regarding restaurants, shopping, cultural events, and accommodations. It is only logical that the inert on-seat ad platform start to integrate artificial intelligence and/or speech recognition to step up the engagement with passengers.

An interactive rearseat system with a touch screen and voice recognition along with the implied opt in of anyone using the system might be preferable. In that event, a passenger that prefers to use his or her phone to access local info or who simply prefers not to be molested by intrusive cameras can rest assured that they will not be ambushed by a seat-mounted system. Is that too much to ask?

If you are in Tokyo, stop by the Westin this week for TU-Auto Japan. Details here: https://sites.tu-auto.com/japan/conference-agenda.php