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A cigarette vending machine that can perceive whether you're old enough to smoke?

Can this thing work?

The Fujitaka company system compares facial characteristics including bone structure, sags and crow's feet against a record of more than 100,000 people....

The company says the system gets it right in nine out of ten cases. The remaining 10% would be sent to a "grey zone for baby-faced adults" where they would be asked to insert their driving licence or identification card.

Grey zone for baby-faced adults? Won't old-faced teens make it into the zone? By the way, a good way to prematurely age your skin is to smoke:

Few people realise that if they smoke, their faces will wrinkle ten years ahead of time and they are likely in middle age to end up with a face like a wrinkled walnut that would rival that of a bloodhound. Even fewer women are aware that smoking also weakens the connective tissue in their breasts and bottoms. Breasts are more likely to develop the spaniel-ears effect, and after even a few years of smoking, bottoms become soft and saggy, rather than pert and firm.

The spaniel-ears effect! That gives pause.

Full post as published by Althouse on May 12, 2008 (boomark / email).