A man arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a woman figured out where she lived from scenery reflected in her eyes in a photo she posted on social media, it has been learned.
Smartphone cameras can take ever-higher-resolution images, prompting experts to advise that users should take such steps as limiting the range of people who can view the images when they post them online.
The 26-year-old man was arrested on Sept. 17 by the Metropolitan Police Department on suspicion of sexual assault resulting in injury. He allegedly waited for the woman -- an entertainer in her 20s -- and touched her body in front of the entrance of her condominium. When asked how he identified the woman's address, the perpetrator said he "got a clue" from the scenery reflected in her eyes in a photo she posted on social media, according to investigative sources.
Looking at the photo of her face, the man confirmed the scenery around a station that was reflected in her eyes. Then he used Google's Street View service, among other tools, to find a station with similar surroundings, according to the sources.
The man allegedly waited for the woman at the ticket gates of the station and followed her to her condominium. He was even able to identify her particular unit, based on the color of a curtain in a video clip the woman had put on social media, according to the sources.
The surface of the eye is a convex mirror shaped like a traffic mirror and can reflect a wide range of scenery.
"The cornea on the surface of the eye is made from transparent collagen," said Takashi Fujikado, an expert on the eye's structure who serves as a specially appointed professor of ophthalmology at Osaka University. "Scenery can be reflected in the eye, just like it can on the surface of glass."
Compared to foreign people, Japanese people more often have black pupils and black irises around the pupils. If irises are black or a dark color, scenery can be reflected more vividly. Moreover, young people tend to have surrounding scenery reflected more clearly because the surfaces of their eyes are smoother and moister, according to the expert.
Today's higher-resolution smartphone cameras also pose the risk that users' fingerprints can be read when someone makes a V sign. A perpetrator can create "false fingers" by reproducing the characteristics of someone else's fingers based on their smartphone image, pretending to be the person to pass fingerprint authentication. Making V-signs near the face makes it easier for the fingers to come into focus, which means fingerprints can be identified more easily.
"There's a risk that personal information could be stolen from photos in a way many people don't expect," said Isao Echizen, an acting director general of the National Institute of Informatics. "You should take some precautions when you post photos on social media and other platforms, such as being careful how you take the images and intentionally reducing the resolution."
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