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China Approves Facial Recognition for Surveillance

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the try-to-get-my-good-side dept.

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.'"

13 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Double standard idealism by merc · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

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

    --
    It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
    1. Re:Double standard idealism by meringuoid · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    2. Re:Double standard idealism by babbling · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Double standard idealism by superwiz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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).

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  2. Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? by meringuoid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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...

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    1. Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

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

    2. Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? by slavemowgli · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      --
      quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
  3. Amazing Technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!

  4. Hmm - question, poser, query... by GuyverDH · · Score: 3, Funny

    What happens when the machine thinks we all look alike?

    --
    Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
  5. In doubts... by Maljin+Jolt · · Score: 2, Funny

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

    --
    There you are, staring at me again.
  6. Cats says: by user24 · · Score: 2, Funny

    All your face are belong to us

    muhahah :-)

  7. What? by FatSean · · Score: 2, Insightful

    [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?

    --
    Blar.
  8. Not to be worried... by Lugor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.