The Pokémon Company is turning to facial recognition scans to help combat scalpers

Nintendo has announced the rollout of a facial recognition system and new entry and purchase rules for its Pokémon stores in Japan. It’s not exactly a last-ditch effort, but it’s yet another attempt at combating scalpers which have been plaguing the hobby ever since its inception.

“In order to provide a safe and secure shopping environment for all customers, to prevent crime, and to ensure compliance with appropriate entry and purchase rules, we will be using a facial recognition system to verify the identity of customers,” The Pokémon Company has explained in new guidance (via IGN). The only exception to this will be Children under elementary school age, so preschoolers, up to six years old.

This is to help manage the one-time limit per day rule where people are only allowed to enter and purchase from a Pokémon store once a day to help ensure more players get access to stock. “If the system detects that the same person has entered the store more than once in one day or received more than one entry ticket, and a notification (alert) to that effect is displayed on the screen, entry will be denied to that person based on the system’s judgement.”

Don’t want your face scanned? Unfortunately, the decision has been made for fans: the Pokémon Company declares that “your acceptance of this system’s management and your agreement to these rules are conditions for entering our store” so if you don’t want to get your face scanned you won’t be getting any Pokémon cards. Although Pokémon does explain that this data will not be held indefinitely and “will be promptly deleted after a certain period of time.”

Our consumer panopticon hell aside, I suppose it’s not exactly a bad idea. Any attempt to corral scalpers who try to scoop up stock to resell it at a greater price is a worthy cause, but I just hope it’s a little more well-adjusted than previous methods.

I’ve had loads of issues with the online Pokémon Centre, its never ending queues, and insistence that I am in fact a bot whenever I try multiple times to get a pre-order through because the site keeps bugging out. While the facial recognition system seems like it would be harder to mess up, there’s always room for error with these things.

But facial recognition scans for entering stores in Japan isn’t exactly new, Gundam stores employ the same system to ensure people only buy one exclusive item a day. It seems like it’s currently the best way to combat scalpers and get popular stock out to more people. All I hope is that it works as intended.