Hotel Check-In By Fingerprint To Avoid Passport Registration Formalities in Japan Beginning In March 2017

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Japan follows it’s roots as a technological innovator and will begin to allow registered visitors to use their fingerprints as form of identification in lieu of their passport to check-in at hotels beginning March 2017.

Hotel Fingerprint CI

As part of the pilot project 80 hotels and Japanese Guesthouses will enroll for this new method of registering their foreign guests.

To participate as a traveler you will first need to register yourself at a designated enrollment center with th original passport.

The Nikkei Asian Review (see here) which I follow daily had a piece about this today.

Visitors to Japan will be able to use their fingerprints instead of passports to identify themselves at some hotels thanks to technology introduced by a Tokyo venture.

With financial help from the economy and industry ministry, Liquid will start offering a fingerprint-based authorization system by March in a bid to increase travel convenience. Some 80 hotels and Japanese-style inns in major tourist spots like Hakone and Atami, two hot spring resort areas not far from Tokyo, will be among the first to install the system. More inns and hotels will follow. The ministry will cover part of the installation costs.

Visitors to Japan can register their fingerprints along with their passport information in their home countries or at registration spots at airports or elsewhere in Japan. Foreign travelers can then identify themselves at a hotel’s front desk by waving their fingers over a contactless device.

I have never seen hotels actually take a copy of the passport in Japan or scanning it. At least not in the hotels with computerized check-in systems.

Conclusion

It’s still almost a year until this becomes available so we shall see where these registration centers are and how convenient the process is.

I go back to Japan about 5 times a year though I stay mainly in Tokyo and Osaka and never had the impression that it would be inconvenient to present my passport or resident card for check-in at a hotel as the Japanese are very efficient. Maybe I register just for fun and to report back how it went!

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  • No name available

    I’d be careful with that. Your passport can get stolen, you file a report and when luck is on your side you can apply for a new passport. When your fingerprints get stolen, what can you do? Think about it first.

    • datachick

      If they are doing this the right way, they aren’t storying fingerprints, but a hash of your fingerprint data. This can be used to identify you, but not to recreate your fingerprints.

  • Gaijinsan

    I use my Japanese drivers license for ID. Like Sebastian mentioned, I can’t remember very many hotels taking any information off my drives license when I check in. Usually it seems like a cursory check to make sure it’s the same info I put on the registration card.

    Though I did get pissed off at the new DoubleTree in Naha (Shuri Castle) because they didn’t bother to look in my reservation before asking for a passport, if the staff would have made the correct effort first, they would have first noticed I’m a Japan resident so wouldn’t be carrying a passport, and also have noticed I’m Hhonors Gold and am not required to give them any ID at all. The staff at that hotel seem to have been very poorly trained on Hhonors policies and benefits, but that’s a whole different post, I won’t be returning there until they’ve had a year or two to get used it it though.

  • Feebo

    Next well hear Asiana want to save your fringer prints on their website too…

  • TARA TAN KITAOKA

    In every improvement there is always 50% GOOD AND 50% BAD. Pls choose the part that suits u
    but do not retard improvement for the better.