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- Facial-recognition technology, once a staple of Minority Report-style movies, is quickly inserting itself into the daily lives of more and more people in the country.
- Although facial recognition has been around for years, the most relevant law regulating its use didn’t go into effect until this past June, according to Ronald Cheng, a partner at international law firm O’Melveny.
Would you want to have your face tracked by ever present cameras so others can know your identities and whereabouts? While the answer is likely to be no for many in the west, the scenario is becoming a reality in China.
Facial-recognition technology, once a staple of Minority Report-style movies, is quickly inserting itself into the daily lives of more and more people in the country. Unfettered by privacy regulations, China’s largest internet companies are scooping up hundreds of millions of photos from their online apps to teach computers to analyze facial features. These companies have identified potential revenue streams from advances in artificial intelligence, while catering to Beijing’s interest in deploying the technology for enhanced surveillance.
For example, search giant Baidu showcased its facial-recognition technology at the company’s first AI developer conference in Beijing. It is also using it to verify customer identities for insurance firm Taikang. Ant Financial, the payment affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, now allows users to make transactions by scanning their faces. Today’s Headlines, a popular local news app, is using facial recognition to verify partner writers, according to Xie Yinan, a spokesperson for Beijing-based facial-recognition startup Megvii, which licenses its technology to news and entertainment platforms.
In some of these cases, the verification process requires users to tune in through live video. Computers can then analyze their facial movements and make cross references with national ID photographs to verify identities, Xie said. The technology can also tell still photos from real people, he said.
More on Forbes: From Cellphone Tracking To Facial Recognition: Minority Report Is Here
Meanwhile, many hotels, schools and kindergartens are installing cameras to scan people’s faces before allowing entry. Some colleges have even resorted to installing this technology to spot “ghost writers” trying to sit exams for other students. And one KFC in Beijing is scanning customers’ faces to recommend menu items based on factors including age, gender and mood.
“In China, facial-recognition technologies are as good as those developed in western countries,” said Wang Shengjin, a professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering at China's prestigious Tsinghua University. “But we are far ahead when it comes to deploying it commercially.”
The technology’s biggest fan, however, is the Chinese government.
In a bid to monitor citizens more closely, authorities are integrating facial recognition with the country’s vast network of surveillance cameras, which now stand at 176 million – compared with only 50 million in the U.S., according to consultancy IHS Markit.
Much like the U.S., the authorities use facial recognition technology to cross-reference surveillance footage with their huge data trove of national ID photographs to catch criminals and terrorists. The technology has become so good that it can even match a person with photos taken ten years apart. There are also ways to enhance the quality of obscure shots.
“It is similar to what you see in the Fast and Furious movies, only with even higher accuracy,” Megvii’s Xie said, referring to a fictional system called God's Eye that can immediately locate anyone’s whereabouts through surveillance cameras.
More on Forbes: Is Google About To Start Sharing Your Facial Recognition Data?
Other uses, however, could spook many in the west. As part of a national campaign to promote “civilized” behavior, regulators have deployed facial recognition to name and shame jaywalkers in dozens of Chinese cities, including Shenzhen and Jinan.
In Jinan, for example, face-reading cameras can take short videos of pedestrians crossing roads on a red light. Offenders’ personal information, including names and home addresses, are then displayed on screens at the side of roads as a warning, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.
Under Chinese law, this doesn’t constitute as breach of privacy. Although facial recognition has been around for years, the most relevant law regulating its use didn’t go into effect until this past June, according to Ronald Cheng, a partner at international law firm O’Melveny. China’s newly installed cybersecurity law has rules on collecting personal information, including biometric characters, for commercial use but doesn’t apply to local governments, Cheng said.
For citizens, they can request deletion of personal information or seek remedies if companies are found to be in violation of the cybersecurity law, he said. But as the law is only a month old, enforcement remains to be seen.
Regardless, China is moving into a future where face-reading cameras will be everywhere.
“China will remain ahead of western countries in using facial recognition,” said Leng Biao, an associate professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering at China’s Beihang University. “From a government strategy perspective, the technology will move much faster than in the U.S. and Europe.”
