China: facial recognition and state control

China is the world leader in facial recognition technology. Discover how the country is using it to develop a vast hyper-surveillance system able to monitor and target its ethnic minorities, including the Muslim Uyghur population.

Improving lives, increasing connectivity across the world, that's the great promise offered by data-driven technology - but in China it also promises greater state control and abuse of power.

This is the next groundbreaking development in data-driven technology, facial recognition. And in China you can already withdraw cash, check in at airports, and pay for goods using just your face. The country is the world's leader in the use of this emerging technology, and China's many artificial intelligence startups are determined to keep it that way in the future.

Companies like Yitu. Yitu is creating the building blocks for a smart city of the future, where facial recognition is part of everyday life. This could even extend to detecting what people are thinking.

But the Chinese government has plans to use this new biometric technology to cement its authoritarian rule. The country has ambitious plans to develop a vast national surveillance system based on facial recognition. It'll be used to monitor it's 1.4 billion citizens in unprecedented ways. With the capability of tracking everything from their emotions to their sexuality.

The primary means will be a vast network of CCTV cameras. 170 million are already in place and an estimated 400 million new ones will be installed over the next three years. The authorities insist this program will allow them to improve security for citizens, and if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

But not everyone is convinced. Hong Zhenkuai is a former magazine editor who was ousted by the government. He feels like he's under constant surveillance. Already the authorities are using facial recognition to name and shame citizens, even for minor offenses like jaywalking. In Beijing they're using the technology to prevent people stealing rolls of loo paper from public toilets, and across China police officers are now trialing sunglasses and body cameras loaded with facial and gesture recognition technology - it's helping them to identify wanted suspects in real-time.

What worries some people here is that as the technology develops, so too does the capacity for it to be abused. Some of those most at risk in this hyper surveillance future are the ethnic minorities in China. In Xinjiang province, the Chinese government is wary of the separatist threat posed by the Muslim Uyghur population. According to local NGOs, an estimated 1 million Uyghurs are being detained indefinitely in secretive internment camps, where some are being subject to abuse. It's been called the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.

The authorities are using facial recognition cameras to scan people's faces before they enter markets. The system alerts authorities if targeted individuals stray 300 meters beyond their home. In the future the government plans to aggregate even more data and build a predictive policing program that imposes even tighter controls here.

Without checks and balances, China will keep finding new ways to violate the human rights of its citizens. What's already happening in Xinjiang is a warning the rest of the world must heed.

What are the forces shaping how people live and work and how power is wielded in the modern age? NOW AND NEXT reveals the pressures, the plans and the likely tipping points for enduring global change. Understand what is really transforming the world today – and discover what may lie in store tomorrow.

[asdf]

It's not that I have something to hide, I have nothing I want you to see.

[AssadAdam]

When china does it its bad. But when UK and US does it its for national security.

[booishoois]

This is exactly why I want to live off grid. Nothing good will come in the future of living in high density population centers.

[ludmilaturkova]

you should NOT be scared of the comments. you should be scared of the facts

[SHADOWNINE]

"I always feel like somebody's watching me ain't got no privacy"

[bananaborealis]

1984 vibes is getting stronger everyday...

[GGWP-gmcq]

Funny enough, while most of the west are terrified, many Chinese actually like the system.




If you want to have a nice and peaceful discussion, do not throw bold assumption like “they have to accept it or they get arrested” or “people here have to like it” unless you are an expert on the relating subjects, such as humans society or global politics. I do not accept any argument or rant from someone who comment on the system without personally experience it for at least a year, or have been educated in related area, or only comment based on the hostility against another ideology.

[steerpike]

this is brilliant we need cameras every 500 yrds, people are fed up with crime, well done

[ChiIun]

The mass surveillance system is already installed today: It's called smartphones

[jx]

my hometown, the police caught the criminal in A killing case in only 3 days for the cameras in the countryside

[KarinaLopez-lzok]

Looks like the bible already knew someone would do this

[timcam]

In the words of Sir Terry Pratchett, "The phrase, the innocent have nothing to fear, should put instant fear into the hearts of innocents everywhere".

[veejsaurty]

Cashless system implementation! C19 was the tool used to implement this system.

[oscarxu]

Nice propaganda! I'm a Chinese and I don't even know the camera on the street is powerful enough to recognize people. These cameras have really low image qualities and just record shit and nobody is watching you. Police might use those streets recordings to find suspected criminals if some serious crimes happened. What's more, if this video is not BS, then all criminals should've been arrested since governments know what you did and where are you. I might have been arrested for jaywalking, same as most of Chinese who did jaywalking. Come on, The Economists, please do some real research and stop using your imagination to try to tell the "truth".

[irislaumol]

Most of western countries are applying the same methodology to control and surveillance their citizen via phone, iphone, smartphone and camera as well, specifically US, UK, Germany, French and Australia.

[changli]

When I came back to China last year, this facial recognition thing really scared me out. It was only 2 years ago that I left China but now it feels a different kind of like a different country. There's camera everywhere. My face get scanned basically every 2~3 days. There's one time I was checking out at a supermarket, and I saw an option of facial recognition. I was thinking how the hell can a supermarket know my account? But for curiosity I clicked it and it worked. Turns out all the machines on the street knows everything about me. It's convenient indeed but sometimes I'm really concerned about it.

[sunnyd]

Every country should set up these cameras. They will help catch criminals. I got stolen from on Talbot street in Dublin and unfortunately there were no cameras around to prove my story. That incident made me wish that Ireland and other countries were surveillance states like China. To anyone who would feel infringed upon, you have nothing to worry about as long as you don’t commit a crime and free speech and disagreeing with the government should not be crimes.

[ПопулярновБългария]

world is freaking out, but this is the baby ai, soon it will grow into a beast !

[SnazzBot]

What if it works great and their crime goes down to record lows, will the UK what to do the same?

[obsidianstatue]

I seriously don't get why news agencies keep on distorting the facts when it comes to state surveillance. it's the same when reporting on the surveillance done by NSA, as with these cameras, they only generate big data, that is stored to be analysed by algorithms and are usually stored for no more than 30 days, neither China nor US government is interested in your email to your grandma or where do you go for your nightly strolls.

the whole point of having AI cameras is to turn digital footage from cameras into readable data, so you don't need people to view and analyse the footage, you only need AI algorithms to do so. and 99.99% of the data would be viewed by the Algorithm and stored then for a period of time, without even been seen by anyone in the government.