{"id":202490,"date":"2017-09-08T20:10:58","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T03:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=202490"},"modified":"2017-10-19T12:56:49","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T19:56:49","slug":"facial-recognition-adoption-raises-eyebrows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2017\/09\/facial-recognition-adoption-raises-eyebrows\/","title":{"rendered":"Facial Recognition Adoption Raises Eyebrows"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week’s Economist looks at the global growth of facial recognition technology<\/strong><\/a>, of which China is both a notable early adopter and a key developer as home to companies including "the world\u2019s first billion-dollar startup from might be called the ‘facial-industrial complex’."<\/p>\n

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TOURING the headquarters of Megvii in Beijing is like visiting Big Brother\u2019s engine room. A video camera in the firm\u2019s lobby recognises visitors in the blink of an eye. Other such devices are deployed around the office. Some of the images they capture are shown on a wall of video called \u201cSkynet\u201d, after the artificial-intelligence (AI) system in the \u201cTerminator\u201d films. One feed shows a group of employees waiting in front of an elevator with a white frame around every face and the name of each person next to it. Quizzed on the Orwellian overtones of the set-up, Yin Qi, the startup\u2019s chief executive, simply remarks that \u201cthis helps catch bad guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u2026] Megvii\u2019s and SenseTime\u2019s services are largely founded on good data. They have access to the Chinese government\u2019s image database of 700m citizens, who are each given a photo ID by the age of 16. Chinese government agencies are also valuable customers\u2014more and more of the country\u2019s hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras will soon recognise faces. In Shenzhen facial recognition is used to identify jaywalkers; names and pictures go up on a screen. In Beijing the municipality has started using the technology to catch thieves of toilet paper in public restrooms (its system also prevents people from taking more than 60 centimetres of paper within a nine-minute period). [Source<\/a><\/strong>] <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The report points out more examples such as Alibaba’s "Smile to Pay" system which recently rolled out in a Hangzhou KFC offshoot<\/a>; a convenience store chain’s use of the technology to analyze customer behavior; and face-based authentication at ATMs. While the latter may be convenient for some, it has proved less appealing to others. Last month, South China Morning Post reported that the introduction of facial recognition systems to ATMs in Macau to help combat illegal capital flows had triggered a "staggering" increase in withdrawals from cameraless machines in nearby Hong Kong<\/a>. A CDT roundup in June noted integration of facial recognition into ride-sharing, robotic package delivery, airport and college dorm security, and social credit schemes<\/a>, and included more detail on its use against jaywalkers. Last month saw the completed introduction of face and voice scans at Beijing Normal University dorms<\/a>, an agreement for Baidu to bring its technology to Beijing’s main airport<\/a>, "with the ‘face as boarding pass’ capability ready for implementation as early as 2018," and the capture of 25 criminal suspects automatically identified at the Qingdao Beer Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

State media outlets have celebrated the technology’s varied and pioneering applications as a showcase of China’s burgeoning technological prowess<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Shanghai recently introduced a facial recognition system to record pedestrians crossing red lights. #SurveillanceCamera<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/tnY72F8cOE<\/a><\/p>\n

— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) July 5, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n