How many times has the Tom Cruise film Minority Report been referenced by writers delving into the future of outdoor advertising? Well, one of the film’s most cited scenes has finally come to life – sort of. A Japanese advertising project has fitted billboards with cameras that can read the gender and age profile of individual people thus allowing them to tailor their commercial messages.
The ‘Digital Signage Promotion Project’ is currently in test phase. It is a one year pilot project involving 27 advertising display units in subway stations around Tokyo. The project is being funded by a consortium of 11 railway companies.
Each display is capable of recognising an individual’s sex and approximate age once that person passes the display or glances at the billboard. Unlike the ‘Minority Report’ hypothesis, these billboards are not yet capable of identifying individuals. However, face recognition technology tied in with social networks could soon change this.
The owners of the high tech digital signs have promised Japanese commuters that they will not save any of the recorded images and only analyse the collated data surrounding groups of people at general times of the working day. How long this promise will stand once real advertisers become interested in the technology remains to be seen. Our guess is approximately one millisecond.

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