China Approves Facial Recognition for Surveillance

user24 writes "Several sources are reporting that China has approved a facial recognition system to be used for ID purposes in surveillance and security. From the article: 'The system, approved by the Ministry of Public Security, is expected to be used at airports, customs entrances, banks, post offices, residential areas and other public places in the near future [...] 'It has a superior advantage compared with fingerprint identification because the country doesn't have a fingerprint database for the general public,' [...] However, the country's ID cards do feature the person's photograph, which could facilitate the creation of a facial database, said Su Guangda.'"

Comments

Double standard idealism

[merc]

When China does it... it's communism.

When a western country does it, it's for homeland security.

Re:Double standard idealism

[meringuoid]

When China does it... it's communism. When a western country does it, it's for homeland security.

Cf. the differences between

terrorist and freedom fighter
heretic and prophet
gangster and king
treasonous rebel and founding father

"When I say a word, it means what I want it to mean." -- Humpty Dumpty

Re:Double standard idealism

[babbling]

In my books, when anyone does it, it's bloody crazy.

Most people don't care about individual freedom, though. The government only ever fails individuals, not any sizable portion of the population. Unfortunately, most people don't really give a shit about something that they perceive can't happen to them.

Re:Double standard idealism

[mightypenguin]

While lots of people bash Chin I don't see anything in the article or the quip here at /. that smashes China. So I don't know what you're moaning about here. If you love Communism I think that's great, I love it too, as an idea. It's just that no one has yet done it right. At least in capitalism there are *some* checks and balances on power abuse. I don't really see those in places like China. And for all those people talking about China's success, it's because they're becoming more capitalist, not communist/socialist. What you have is a planned capitalist economy with a communist society.

Re:Double standard idealism

[RhettLivingston]

This will change, though it may come too late. The key experiment in this arena is of course the UK, not China due to the decade+ head start they have. As they inevitably move towards being able to process their massive video capture in ways that find crimes and other costs to society automatically (catch all speeders, catch everyone that runs a stop sign, catch every jaywalker, catch everyone who doesn't properly use a blinker, direct bill for exact usage of all public facilities, not just roads, catch hate crimes for everyone that flips the bird at someone in public, etc.), people will rebel. The question is whether it will happen in time or the outcome will be more like throwing a frog into a pot of water and gradually bringing it to a boil.

Re:Double standard idealism

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

i still dont see it

i live in the country with the highest number of cctv cameras per capita, in the world, it is 'democratic'. we were never asked to vote on if we wanted to be tracked or not. it doesnt matter which party we vote for, they both have very similar policies. compulsory id cards are about to be forced on us, again, no possible democratic way to stop them. number plate recognition systems are already in use on our streets to track the movement of cars. facial recognition has been trialed & no doubt will be used widely once it works well enough. Public opinion is easily manupulated by the mass media, surveys are often faked, i could go on.

so please tell me the difference?

at least china seem to be more honest about it than the west

Re:Double standard idealism

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

jaywalking is perfectly legal here in the uk (for now)

the rest of what you say is correct tho & its even worse than you think. in around 10 years the government will be able to track every movement of every person in the country (at least in cities & towns) & keep a database of those movements for at least 2 years.

Re:Double standard idealism

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

what on earth are you talking about?

Re:Double standard idealism

[clydemaxwell]

I read your comment and my head began to hurt, I began to be upset that people could think this way...
until I saw you posted as AC. ACs aren't real people :D

Re:Double standard idealism

[ranton]

You talk about a bunch of things that you do not like, such as ID Cards and CCTV Cameras, but never make a compelling argument about why they are bad things. If you think so strongly that they are bad things then do something about it. Lobby your government or at least pay lobbiests to do it for you. Run for political office or at least help out a local politician with like minded ideals.

If you are not willing to do these sorts of things, then you really dont care all that much do you? If you dont have the money or power to do it, then do something to get more money and/or power. It is people like you that allow things like this to happen.

People get so used to all of the freedoms that we enjoy, that no one remembers that people have had to DIE for these freedoms in the past. That is why we have them, not because the world is a some wonderful place where everything is fair and people are treated equally. Do you want equality and justice? Then you better be ready and willing to die for it.

so please tell me the difference? [Between the West and China]

The difference is that if you actually want to go out there and make change; you are allowed to do it in the west. In countries such as the US, you can camp outside the President's house and protest without being shot or imprisoned indefinetly. You may not make a difference, but you are allowed to try.

And people do make a difference, just look at the progress made in women's rights and racial equality over the past 100 years. But it doesnt happen over night. Dont expect to start protesting against government power and have anything change within one administration. It takes decades for real and meaningful change to take place. But it is possible.

At least if you live in the "West" that is.
--

Re:Double standard idealism

[jasen666]

There was a case where a farmer received an automated ticket for driving his farm equipment at 85mph.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/462695 2.stm

Yeah, these camera's are notoriously reliable, right?

Re:Double standard idealism

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

well, its hardly rusty or very old, and it was totally different types of camera i was referring to.

but it is a very valid point, im sure most of these automated surveillance technologies have a significant error rate, when applied to a population of millions. Its only a matter of time until someone is convicted of a crime they didnt commit & their alibi doesnt matter, because the machine says they were commiting a crime.

Re:Double standard idealism

[Aim Here]

"In countries such as the US, you can camp outside the President's house and protest without being shot or imprisoned indefinetly."

The country he was talking about was not one of those countries. Unless your name is Brian Haw, you can be arrested for protesting within a mile of the Houses of Parliament. Downing Street falls within that catchment area too.

Brian Haw gets arrested too, but they have to find other bogus excuses to arrest him.

Just so you know.

Re:Double standard idealism

[mOdQuArK!]

If you love Communism I think that's great, I love it too, as an idea. It's just that no one has yet done it right.

It's that "totalitarianism" phase of Marxism - the guys who start the revolution just can't quite seem to get through that phase in order to start the inevitable arrival at Utopia. Given enough historical trends, one might start to suspect that the "leaders" of the Revolution(tm) never really intended to get past the totalitarian phase.

Re:Double standard idealism

[superwiz]

Wow, this is wrong on so many levels. Communism fails because people do it right -- not despite of it. Planned economies cannot work because those doing the planning are less invested in the success of their plan than those performing the work. And those performing the work naturally dull their ingenuity because they feel disenfranchised from power. The ingenuity is not gone completely, but it is dulled.

Plus innovation comes out of planning -- a process that more often than not involves weighing the possibilities of what is already possible. In a true capitalist economy progress comes out competing -- which is looking for yet not possible in order to get ahead of the competition. Obviously, this creates a much stronger impetus for progress.

This is why Monopolies and "public" companies are inherently inefficient as well. The monopolies are essentially planned economies and public companies separate the owners from the responsibilities of running their companies and thus there is very little fear of failure left in those companies. The guys at the top are too sure that they can always get a new job somewhere else or just retire on all those huge salaries they were making. If they had a sense of ownership of their companies, they be afraid to loose them and would be fighting dirty to inovate and stay ahead.

And the current success of China is due to the state taking hands off the planning. It's a madhouse in the business environment there. Enterprices have to completely fend for themselves. This creates impetus to move quickly to conquer new markets to make more money. Government taking its hands off is what drives the new Chinese economy.

As for power abuse, it is the natural function of power to be abused by the people who have it. The more "professional" politicians are, the more they are likely to abuse it. It makes sense because anyone who spends his entire life trying to get into the position of power wants to maximize his return-on-investment -- in this case the investment being his life-time of work trying to get into power. I am not saying that these people have not ends in mind other than personal power-grab, I am just outlying a natural tendency here.

Checks and balances are not a natural property of a capitalist society. They are a natural property of a democratic society. Hitler's Germany was a capitalist society. So is modern Iran. So is modern Russian (which is by no means democratic).

Re:Double standard idealism

[bentcd]

. . . throwing a frog into a pot of water and gradually bringing it to a boil . . .
In the interest of public education, I would like to point out that this is an erroneous myth:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.htm
Interestingly, humans are probably more susceptible to this sort of treatment since our bodies will busily try to adjust to the increasing temperature, leading us to think that it's something we can handle. When the frog notices the increased temp, on the other hand, his only strategy for lowering the temperature is to jump away.

Re:Double standard idealism

[lasindi]

Software Development:

When Microsoft does it ... it's evil.

When RMS does it, it's for the good of the world.

The point here is that technology is rarely if ever inherently wrong; it just depends on who uses it and what they use it for.

Re:Double standard idealism

[larry bagina]

I went to see Boogie Nights, looking at it as a nearsighted historian, rather than as a film critic, trying to see what might be true, historically, if not histrionically. As a porn critic, I am only allowed, by my union, to review North Hollywood films. Of course, I wasn't in Chatsworth in 1978, so I don't really know what was going on there. I don't even remember those post-Nixon years. Due to a lack of drug taking in my placid youth, I have no flashbacks whatsoever of anything that's happened in America over the past 30 years. For all I know, nothing has happened in America since the fall of Nixon and Saigon, though there has been a certain amount of hair loss on my part. Perhaps there have been advances made in implant therapy.

I do know, however, where some of the scenes in Boogie Nights were lifted from. One scene, where Kyoto sneaks up on Johnny Wadd when he's in bed, supposedly asleep, and tries to Bobbitt him, is from China Cat. There's another Johnny Wadd scene that I remember, from China Cat or Exhausted, where a woman positively identifies Johnny when she sees his penis. It was an easy penis to identify. Paula Jones probably watched that movie, as well. And then there's a borrowing from Jamie Gillis and Rene Morgan in On The Prowl, picking up men from off the streets of San Francisco and taking them for rides in their stretch limo. Mothers never warn little boys about that sort of thing, apparently. Burt Reynolds does a nice job of play by play announcing, but he's no Jamie Gillis...or even John Kennedy.

There are probably other Johnny Wadd scenes I missed (I'm only a nearsighted porn historian, and I don't get to take Bill Margold or Jim Holliday to the movies with me), and I'm sadly not in the loop for all of the great gossip that doesn't make it into Adult Video News, otherwise, I'd share it all with our readers.

So I simply don't know about the cocaine usage in Boogie Nights...if there was that much back in the '70s...but I know, from watching Inside Edition, the profession of the man whom Shauna Grant was living with before she died, so it wasn't surprising to see the character Little Cinderella played, OD on coke in that movie. I'm sure that some husbands shoot their wives (don't they always, even in Ohio), and I remember the suicide of Cal Jammer, so I'm just glad, being unusually squeamish when it doesn't come to sex, that I didn't have to actually see Nina Hartley get shot (real life does include the tragedy of the Mitchell Brothers).

One of the vividest scenes in Boogie Nights was the attempted robbery of the drug dealer, after trying to sell him a bag of baking soda--what with firecrackers going off, and the crack addled dealer singing along with some truly awful songs (the best music to my ears in the film was some early Chico Hamilton--great to know someone still remembers his Pacific Jazz sides) before everyone involved either gets shot at or shot.

But this pales in comparison with John Holmes' real involvement in the murders of his friends, that Tammy Cole wrote about in BNI--a case that began with robbery and kidnapping, and probably ended with John having to watch his friends being battered to death in front of his eyes. The hero of Boogie Nights, unlike John, does not end up in jail for over a year, awaiting his trial for first degree murder.

There were directors living in the Valley who threw parties every Saturday night that, I'm told, were probably wilder than anything shown in Boogie Nights. I almost wish I could have been there, though I never go to parties. If I were a party animal, I'd most resemble a dormouse.

But oh, if only they had dared to shoot real sex, and show it...this would have been a great porn film, true or untrue. But Hollywood just had to substitute pistol shots for pop shots. It needs to be remade, but I fear there's no chance of that. The theater was empty enough as is, not more than 8 or 10 people... perfect seating for raincoaters, only there was no need to bring a raincoat.

It was nice seeing Summer and Skye

Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[meringuoid]

Let's say that they deploy this thing in only one city. It sees, shall we say, ten million faces a day.

Each face has to be compared against the database. The database of the Chinese population, because you can't assume that everyone stays in the same city all the time. One point two billion people.

I make that twelve quadrillion comparisons that will have to be made each day by this system. This thing's going to have to make the Earth Simulator look like an abacus...

Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're only going to need one picture in the database ...

Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[slavemowgli]

Yeah... because heaven forbid that we use something better than linear searching to test for matches. I don't really know the details of how face recognition works, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't use a tree-like structure to do only O(log n) comparisons to find a specific person.

Besides, the argument that it won't be feasible on a technical level/too expensive/too complicated is a bit naive, too. The same thing could said about China's "great firewall" (and probably has been said about it prior to its being built), but somehow, it didn't keep them from implementing that one, either.

Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[Pig Hogger]

You're only going to need one picture in the database ...

Why? Because (to you), all Chinese look the same???

Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[meringuoid]

Yeah... because heaven forbid that we use something better than linear searching to test for matches. I don't really know the details of how face recognition works, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't use a tree-like structure to do only O(log n) comparisons to find a specific person.

I imagine they could play a game of Guess Who with the database... first of all split it to Men or Women, then narrow it down to People With Thick Eyebrows, People With Big Ears, People With Beards, etc. But you're looking at a billion or so people here, so even once you've knocked down most of the faces on the Guess Who board you've still likely got a huge number of people to check. I imagine the easiest marker a computer can pick out would be hair colour - but this is China...

You'll want to keep playing Guess Who as long as possible, to minimise the number of faces you have to actually compare directly. So... what's the resolution of the cameras likely to be, and of the ID card photos? This is still going to be an enormous computational task.

My guess is that they're not going to attempt automatically recognising everyone who comes by and logging their locations, the whole 1984 thing. Not yet. What they'll do is record the video feeds, and then when they've got a suspect for some crime they'll feed his likeness into the machine and find out where he's been in the past. Then they're only matching each face seen by the cameras against one face on record - the suspect's. That's certainly feasible.

Then, ten or twenty years down the line, Moore's Law has increased the available computer power - and they can go ahead with full-scale automatic recognition.

Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[jericho4.0]

The methods used (and demands on the system) are conducive to quick searching. The face is hashed into a (hopefully) unique numerical value using eigenfaces. This large databases of small numbers can then be searched quickly. The bottleneck is in counstructing the eigenvalues for all the faces in a crowd, this has been demod at pretty high speed on PC hardware, though.

The systems are plagued with false negatives...I think this computer will find all Chinese people look different.

Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[JimBobJoe]

Each face has to be compared against the database.

The article implied that they wouldn't be doing this (that is--all 1.3 billion pictures would be loaded in the database, and the computer would be matching each face to each picture many times per day.)

We don't have that type of technology. We don't have anything *near* that type of technology (I've understood facial recognition to be accurate at fewer than 10,000 photographs. Anything above that and it just loses it.)

The article implies that they will only use the facial recognition system for very special purposes--they will seek out a particular individual and load that person's picture into the comparison database, and compare everyone to that one picture.

Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[ergo98]

We don't have that type of technology. We don't have anything *near* that type of technology (I've understood facial recognition to be accurate at fewer than 10,000 photographs. Anything above that and it just loses it.)

Exactly. Most systems lose any value at all at far below 10,000 faces, though.

Facial recognition is largely in the "snake oil" stage, where salespeople dummy up ridiculous best-case tests against a tiny database, and then declare the technology a success. Put a billion Chinese in a database and things get just a tad more difficult (as an aside - someone made a joke that "they all look alike". While that's an old joke, and the poster admitted it, there is a bit of truth to it -- the genetic diversity in an average Chinese city is vastly smaller than in New York City, for instance. The closer people look, the more difficult of a time the system has. You're going to have HUGE nodal overlaps with the limited precision of something like a camera, and the margin of error through hardware problems, and even people bloating up because they had a liquid breakfast, that it will render the false positive rate tremendous, and the false negative so high to really put the icing on the cake).

Facial recognition is the best place for a free-market economy to do its thing. When someone really makes an effective facial recognition technology that works in the large, the market will beat a path to their door. Thus far it hasn't happened.

Of course it can be done - humans somehow do it, and we do it tremendously well. We somehow manage to pick out faces from huge distances, and to identify people by their posture, walking style, and so on. While we do work with a much smaller set, somehow there is some heuristics that can be extrapolated, but as it is nothing actually demonstrated on the market has done so.

Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[Znork]

"Of course it can be done - humans somehow do it, and we do it tremendously well."

Depending on what you mean by 'well'. How many times have you passed right by someone you know, and how many times have you seen someone you think you recognize in a crowd, but it turned out to be someone just looking like them?

Even if the human brain is tremendously good at facial recognition, the problem simply grows too fast when both population and match-set grows. Personally I suspect there simply is such a large overlap in variations within the appearance of a single individual and between individuals that you'll never get rid of the false positive/negative problem, and thus end up with either a system that changes your apparent identity depending on your facial expression and amount of stubble, or one that identifies five thousand copies of the same individual across the country.

Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I make that twelve quadrillion comparisons that will have to be made each day by this system

There's no need to compare against the entire population - they only need to compare against the people they're looking for - christians, reporters, students, writers, etc.

Amazing Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

That's really impressive! I mean, to me, they all look alike...ow, hey! Stop throwing things! Not in the face! Not in the face!

Re:Amazing Technology

[erroneus]

I'm glad you said it... because I was thinking it. ;) Hahaha

Re:Amazing Technology

[the darn]

bwa-ha-ha!

Hmm - question, poser, query...

[GuyverDH]

What happens when the machine thinks we all look alike?

To clarify,

[Jordan Catalano]

"other public places" == "China"

Re:To clarify,

[PFI_Optix]

Well, there's not really a lot left after you cover "airports, customs entrances, banks, post offices, residential areas."

Re:To clarify,

[Knuckles]

there's not really a lot left after you cover "airports, customs entrances, banks, post offices, residential areas."

Go to Google Earth some time and check out China. You'll be surprised how much is left.

Re:To clarify,

[PFI_Optix]

If you're going for facial recognition of farmers and people hiking in the woods, yeah. But for average urban life, just covering banks, post offices, and residential areas (emphasis on the last) monitors a large section of the population on a regular basis.

Not necessarily evil

[pubjames]

There have been cameras pointing at you at customs when flying between the UK and Ireland for years, and I've noticed them at more and more customs posts recently in Europe.

It wouldn't surprise me if the same thing is true in the USA.

Re:Not necessarily evil

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

of course, it has to be fine if it happens here, we wouldnt want china to lag behind the west in the total surveillance of their entire population.

maybe they could share info with the west too, incase any chinese dissidents try to hide in europe or north america. we could also persecute people that disagree with 'western values', should they be silly enough to try to hide in china.

Golden shield

[liangzai]

Well, this is all part of the Golden shield project, which uses Western technology (surveillance tech provided by the FBI) and is built mainly by some 300 Western companies. Isn't a bit too late complaining now?

Lotsa uninformed China bashing on Slashdot these days...

Re:Golden shield

[bishop32x]

just becuase it's being built by western companies means we like it. It's increasingly looking like a large segment (or at least an important one)of the US population dislikes the fact that US companies are doing it.

Serious test of the algorithms?

[advocate_one]

they all look alike don't they???

In doubts...

[Maljin Jolt]

I am not sure how precise the face recognition in China may be since all Chinese looks the same to me...

Power in China misunderstood

[Oldsmobile]

I think the critique against general is based on wrong assumptions. The view in the west, and the western media of China, is of a very strong, centrally controlled government.

This is absolutely falce. The central government in China, while a strong entity in itself, has very little control over what happens in China. China is in fact very locally governed (If this sounds of anarchistic ideas, then you would be correct, Mao was strongly influenced by European anarchist thinkers).

Thus if the central government sets a certain type of policy, it does not immediately mean if will happen on a local level. Sure, larger cities have governments that are closer to the central government and will attempt to implement policy, but in other parts of China decision making is completely autonomous.

This misunderstanding can be seen, when the Chinese government is critisized for not doing something about a problem, yet crtisizied for setting national policy. In reality, implementation varies from place to place from near perfect implementation to doing the complete opposite.

Re:Power in China misunderstood

[loraksus]

You forgot to mention that the main reason the policies don't get implemented is because of rampant corruption in the local / regional governments.
Of course, China is hardly unique, but they do have a wee bit of a problem.

Re:Power in China misunderstood

[Oldsmobile]

No, that is not it at all. It is the way the system is set up. It is because the system is set up that way that also breeds corruption, not the other way around.

false even

[Oldsmobile]

it MIGHT even be false!

Cats says:

[user24]

All your face are belong to us

muhahah :-)

ID card data

[user24]

I wonder if, when applying for an ID card, Chinese citizens were told their faces might be scanned and used for a future project such as this.

I also wonder if my UK driving license photo was scanned by my government for similar purposes.

Additionally, I wonder if I could copyright or trademark my face, or at least facial features such as those that would be used by this type of system.

Finally, I wonder if the systems are really that reliable, given the pretty bad track record that fingerprinting systems have.

Re:ID card data

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

the photographer owns the copyright on any photograph they take, you cannot copyright your face

Re:ID card data

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

sorry, missed your other points.

yes the uk government does make a digital copy of your photo for your driving license, i doubt it is deleted, but it may or may not be much use for facial recognition.

currently facial recognition has high error rates, it is also fooled by wearing a hat, a hood, or growing a beard, among other things. it has been trialed in the uk, although im not sure if its currently in use, as the trials werent very successful. obviously though, the technology will improve & its only a matter of time before it is considered 'good enough' for use by governments & other organisations.

Re:ID card data

[advocate_one]

I wonder how they'd cope if I got a tattoo done of those anti-printing circles they have on banknotes??? they'd never be able to print my face on a wanted poster...

Re:ID card data

[mOdQuArK!]

Chinese citizens were told their faces might be scanned and used for a future project such as this.

Why would the government care about whether they should tell their citizens about what they plan on doing with the picture? The citizens had better damn well do what they're told, they don't need any explanation.

Re:Yea but's it's not going to help much.

[The_REAL_DZA]

Hey, maybe they've determined that bald-spots are as unique as fingerprints... The "Asian" genome contains genes for MPB as well, you know.

Powered by....

[Jaysyn]

.....Google!!

(it's a joke, laugh)

Jaysyn

What?

[FatSean]

[i]The difference is that if you actually want to go out there and make change; you are allowed to do it in the west. In countries such as the US, you can camp outside the President's house and protest without being shot or imprisoned indefinetly. You may not make a difference, but you are allowed to try.[/i]

Liar. They couldn't keep it up in Crawford, Texass. Several laws were passed to prevent this. And for damn sure no protestors are allowed to camp out infront of thwe whitehouse! Hell, they took down a guy who just happened to stand in front with a briefcase for too long.

Womens rights took decades, and some feel they still not equivelant. Do you suggest we must simply accept invasive government surveilance with no paper trail or accountability for 50 years until we ram a 'better way' through all the red tape?

China copies again !

[dago]

Yep, they can't stop copying existing western programs ...

Not to be worried...

[Lugor]

Let me relate a story about how all governments are inefficient and incompetent, even police states. I have two friends who live in the US. They are Chinese born and are naturalized American citizens. So their passports have the same 'English' or PingYing name. They both live in the same area and work for NASA. When one goes back (to China), the other always has issues if he goes back within 2-3 months. That is because the system simply tracks them by name and area they are from. So the system sees a person from the US,- say DC,- returns to China and leaves, then comes back 2 weeks later, it is suspicious. It's even better if the other hasn't left, cause then they think the person left the country without going through an official checkpoint and is trying to re-enter (can you say 'spy'). Usually takes them 3-4 hours to straigten everything out... So even police states can't track everyone.

First time, haha. Second time, ok. Third, not fun.

[hadj]

Read the thread. Dozens of people have already reconfirmed that all Chinese people look the same. It's a well known prejudice and simply not funny when repeated a couple of times. Joke's over, ok?

Excellent!

[M0b1u5]

Cool! Now I can be CERTAIN of not being recognised in China!

In other news

[witte]

Chinese people seen making strange faces all the time. Beijing denies bird flu link.

PingYing???

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Is "PingYing" a mistaken attempt to say "pinyin"?