Japan is Experimenting with AI to Combat Terrorism

Japan's National Police Agency is looking into artificial intelligence and how it can be used to combat terrorism.

• By Sydny Shepard
• Jan 18, 2019

Japan is looking towards advanced technology to aid in the fight against terroism. As reported in The Japan News, the Japanese National Police Agency (NPA) is planning to begin experimenting with the use of artificial intelligence in anti-terrorism and criminal investigations next fiscal year.

The experiments would involve using the characteristics of past attacks in Europe to train AI to identify terrorists in crowded areas, and introducing AI systems to analyze surveillance videos in criminal investigations. 

The NPA plans to conduct experiments in the three areas: identifying suspicious people and objects targeting large events, determining the model of automobiles and analyzing suspicious financial transactions. 

The new system would use past attacks, such as attacks on soft targets in Europe, to teach AI the signs of impending attacks and the characteristics of terrorist behavior.

The system will be deployed at large sporting competitions, events and international conferences and will automatically detect people exhibiting unusual behavior such as repeatedly visiting a certain location or staying in one place, or suspicious objects that are abandoned.

After detecting something, the system would issue a warning so police officers could assess the situation, such as to determine whether the pro in question is armed.

"Much is unclear about how useful AI will be, but we are aggressively searching for ways to make our work more advanced and more efficient," a senior NPA official said.

If the deployment methods are effective, they could be deployed during the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo.