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Will Facial Recognition in China Lead To Total Surveillance? (washingtonpost.com)
schwit1 shares a new Washington Post article about China's police and security state -- including the facial recognition cameras allow access to apartment buildings. "If I am carrying shopping bags in both hands, I just have to look ahead and the door swings open," one 40-year-old woman tells the Post. "And my 5-year-old daughter can just look up at the camera and get in. It's good for kids because they often lose their keys."
But for the police, the cameras that replaced the residents' old entry cards serve quite a different purpose. Now they can see who's coming and going, and by combining artificial intelligence with a huge national bank of photos, the system in this pilot project should enable police to identify what one police report, shared with The Washington Post, called the "bad guys" who once might have slipped by... Banks, airports, hotels and even public toilets are all trying to verify people's identities by analyzing their faces. But the police and security state have been the most enthusiastic about embracing this new technology.
The pilot in Chongqing forms one tiny part of an ambitious plan, known as "Xue Liang," which can be translated as "Sharp Eyes." The intent is to connect the security cameras that already scan roads, shopping malls and transport hubs with private cameras on compounds and buildings, and integrate them into one nationwide surveillance and data-sharing platform... At the back end, these efforts merge with a vast database of information on every citizen, a "Police Cloud" that aims to scoop up such data as criminal and medical records, travel bookings, online purchase and even social media comments -- and link it to everyone's identity card and face.
The pilot in Chongqing forms one tiny part of an ambitious plan, known as "Xue Liang," which can be translated as "Sharp Eyes." The intent is to connect the security cameras that already scan roads, shopping malls and transport hubs with private cameras on compounds and buildings, and integrate them into one nationwide surveillance and data-sharing platform... At the back end, these efforts merge with a vast database of information on every citizen, a "Police Cloud" that aims to scoop up such data as criminal and medical records, travel bookings, online purchase and even social media comments -- and link it to everyone's identity card and face.
You people apparently have not been paying any attention to what China has been doing for decades now. Automated facial scanning is but one tiny piece in a massive machine that has existed for quite a long time now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Once all automobiles are mandated to be robot-driven, so we can restrict your travel entirely to where you can walk, the imprisonment will be complete.
Worldwide!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Maybe the Islamic Women who wear Burkas ( full face covering ) are actually ahead of the times. Maybe we'll all be wearing them in the future to preserve our privacy.
You live and learn, or you don't learn much.
The whole point of a book like "1984" is to explore what happens to society when Government has this level of surveillance and control. When you can't curse the "great leader" in your home without someone or something hearing you and reporting you; when you can't discuss government with your neighbors without your words being reported; when you can't gather with like-minded people to discuss ways to change the government (either within the rules, or outside them) without being arrested as a danger; when the government can identify every person in a demonstration, the age-old remedy of revolution becomes unimaginable, and society freezes into rigid authoritarianism with no viable hope to break free.
And if you believe that China is the only government teetering on the edge of this chasm, you haven't been paying attention.
And the worms ate into his brain.