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Police In China Are Scanning Travelers With Facial Recognition Glasses (engadget.com)

Baron_Yam shares a report from Engadget: Police in China are now sporting glasses equipped with facial recognition devices and they're using them to scan train riders and plane passengers for individuals who may be trying to avoid law enforcement or are using fake IDs. So far, police have caught seven people connected to major criminal cases and 26 who were using false IDs while traveling, according to People's Daily. The Wall Street Journal reports that Beijing-based LLVision Technology Co. developed the devices. The company produces wearable video cameras as well and while it sells those to anyone, it's vetting buyers for its facial recognition devices. And, for now, it isn't selling them to consumers. LLVision says that in tests, the system was able to pick out individuals from a database of 10,000 people and it could do so in 100 milliseconds. However, CEO Wu Fei told the Wall Street Journal that in the real world, accuracy would probably drop due to "environmental noise." Additionally, aside from being portable, another difference between these devices and typical facial recognition systems is that the database used for comparing images is contained in a hand-held device rather than the cloud."

87 comments

  1. Glassholes! by freax · · Score: 3, Funny

    Police in China are now the new Glassholes.

    1. Re:Glassholes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fun.

      I really don't want to live in a world like that.

    2. Re:Glassholes! by BabyAndTheButterfly · · Score: 0

      it's obviously the future. coming near you soon.

    3. Re:Glassholes! by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As someone who has serious issues remembering and recognizing faces (an iPhone 3 with a broken camera would outperform me), I would like a device like this. Something that remembers faces of people I meet and pops up their name when it sees them again.

      Personally I don't have an issue per se with police (or surveillance cameras) being equiped with face recognition software, or with roadside cameras equipped with ANR. The issue I have with these is their use cases, and the way the extracted data is used. And those uses always get expanded once the tech is in place. Police can be flagged automatically about criminals under an arrest warrant? Great. But the same tech can be used to grab people with outstanding parking tickets, or people critical of the government, or even completely innocent people who happen to be near a crime scene. ANR can be used to flag stolen vehicles... great. But it can also be used to track every citizen across the highway network, and you can be sure politicans will come up with good reasons for doing so.

      We (some countries) already have decent privacy guidelines, and decent checks and audits in place on the way such sensitive data is used. But what we don't have is a check on use cases. We're not going to stop invasive technology like this, but we can push for much stricter rules on how it can be applied. Potential benefits should always be weighed against the right to privacy and potential harm to innocents, and those potential benefits should be tested; if they aren't realised, the use case should be invalidated. And negligence or misuse should be treated as a criminal case.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    4. Re:Glassholes! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      As someone who has trouble remembering names I'd also like something like this.

      The Chinese state is much more open about watching people, and markets it as being for their benefit and protection. For example, as you drive through junctions in China you often see a flash of light, which is the LED flash bulb illuminating your face so that the camera can photograph it. In the UK we have the same system but they use ambient lighting and paint the cameras grey so you don't notice them, and certainly don't advertise the fact that they are doing it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Glassholes! by rmdingler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As someone else who has trouble remembering names, I would rather continue struggling through the several seconds of social disjointedness before having every personal interaction recorded, and probably then uploaded and stored.

      I find it disturbing that of innovations imagined in the last few decades of science fiction, many of the technologies presently developing the fastest are those that benefit the surveillance state.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    6. Re:Glassholes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fun.

      I really don't want to live in a world like that.

      some of us are already living in it
      https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186435-uk-the-worlds-most-surveilled-state-begins-using-automated-face-recognition-to-catch-criminals
      https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/05/south_wales_police_facial_recognition_arrests/
      https://www.ft.com/content/ab60f9f2-bb26-11e7-8c12-5661783e5589
      https://news.sky.com/story/police-hold-more-than-20-million-facial-recognition-images-11001479

      Greetings from Airstrip one...

    7. Re:Glassholes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, me neither. Minority Report.

      If we wish to hang on to what few true freedoms we have, then we need to attack this use of technology wherever it's used. Political, Social, Economical.

      So when government pushes for more taxes, and us conservatives push for less, just remember what government is doing with the tax dollars they have. They already have way too much power, and our taxes are way too high.

    8. Re:Glassholes! by burtosis · · Score: 1

      And in 10 years we will be probably be debating if the camera in our smart underwear really is that invasive. Between new sensor technology and computers in general getting better, smaller, and cheaper all the time, and inexpensive ubiquitous data connections I think we are past the point of no return.

    9. Re:Glassholes! by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

      ...before having every personal interaction recorded...

      It doesn't need to record anything. It's such a shame that so many companies use cameras and microphones to record things that they shouldn't. Now we are afraid of what should be perfectly reasonable technology.

    10. Re:Glassholes! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Who said anything about recording and uploading? I just want local facial recognition of people in my personal, encrypted database.

      You know, like how my brain has locally stored memories that allow me to recognize people, only with more reliable retrieval of the associated name.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:Glassholes! by Bryansix · · Score: 1

      What you don't realize is that the NSA is about a decade ahead of what the general public can get its hands on regarding surveillance. If you are worried now, you are late to the party.

    12. Re:Glassholes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As someone who has serious issues remembering and recognizing faces (an iPhone 3 with a broken camera would outperform me), I would like a device like this. Something that remembers faces of people I meet and pops up their name when it sees them again.

      I remember faces, just not names. Very annoying.

      But after ditching a broken smartphone whose broken-out-of-the-box navigation kept trying to kill me by sending me onto freeways (in "walking" mode), I'm back to taking notes from a map and navigating by streetname from my notes. And I find that I'm getting better at it all the time. Yes, it takes some work, but even with the occasional getting lost (at least once on a long trip with a significant amount of new route) and having to ask randoms in the street or studying streetside maps halfway, I kinda prefer it over a fully automatic solution. I learn new skills this way.

      So while this tech is tempting as a real boon for individuals, I think that you could make do without, with a little training and exercise.

      Personally I don't have an issue per se with police (or surveillance cameras) being equiped with face recognition software, or with roadside cameras equipped with ANR. The issue I have with these is their use cases, and the way the extracted data is used. And those uses always get expanded once the tech is in place.

      You cannot have the tech and not have its use get expanded. It should be that public discussion sets acceptable use cases and the government keeps within those bounds, but that never happens. Nor do you get a full rehash of the discussion from the start on expansion; that's usually "well we have it anyway", or just quietly pushed through. So it's either have it and slowly have it get ever more invasive, or not have it at all.

      This effect is what I'm thinking off when I say I don't want to live in the world we're creating with all that tech.

      "We", specifically those of us in power, like in government, simply cannot be trusted with lots of easily expandable power.

      Police can be flagged automatically about criminals under an arrest warrant? Great.

      Only if the crimes that you can get arrested for are acceptable to be arrested for. Go look at what gets you flagged "criminal" in, say, contemporary Turkey. This is why you hobble government: So it has a hard time getting out of hand, regardless of what the word of the day is.

      In other words, the distinction you make is not the distinction the disagreeable government makes. That, or rather the inability to freeze "acceptability" in stone, is the crux of the problem.

      Suppose McCarthy had had all this surveillance tech at his disposal.

    13. Re:Glassholes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're they not-so-new glassholes. The problem is that the US has been at their heels in a race to embrace mass surveillance.

    14. Re:Glassholes! by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      What you don't realize is that the NSA is about a decade ahead of what the general public can get its hands on regarding surveillance. If you are worried now, you are late to the party.

      Let's say, "If you are worried now" is broken up into two inclusive subsets:

      Are you worried now for the first time ever?, and

      Are you worried now once again? would comprise, right at with rounding, 100% of participants. That's as inclusive as Drew Barrymore attending her "friend's" wedding at a Grunge concert.

      Sure, it's always some people's first go-round with surveillance-a-phobia.. hey, are you calling me, Some People?

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    15. Re:Glassholes! by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      Take heart. If your smart underwear prediction is spot-on, we'll have posters who make tinfoil underwear a thing.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    16. Re:Glassholes! by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      If you're worried now isn't an all-inclusive subset of people who just began worrying today.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    17. Re:Glassholes! by chihowa · · Score: 1

      Almost nothing is done locally anymore, even though so much of what is shipped off to "the cloud" was able to be handled by the processors available twenty years ago.

      If some company sells a product that does anything at all for you, they'll design it such that they can slurp up as much personal information as possible.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  2. Oh well by dohzer · · Score: 1

    Google and Facebook are already doing it with my own phone!

    1. Re:Oh well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And they're possibly sharing the facial recognition data with the Chinese government... AIn't that wonderful.

    2. Re:Oh well by dryeo · · Score: 1

      And they're possibly sharing the facial recognition data with the Chinese government... AIn't that wonderful.

      I worry more about the American government. China has no extradition treaty and doesn't give a shit about the other side of the world whereas America has shown itself not to give a shit about foreigners rights, including extra-judiciary murders and leveraging extradition treaties.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  3. Stage one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Image recognition of criminal individuals

    Stage two

    Image recognition of healthy organs within general population

    Some of the people police in China are locking up aren't criminals, their political activists or drug users or anyone else that ran afoul of the powers that be. They have a nasty habit of going missing roughly at the same time some wealthy person gets a new set of lungs or a heart.

    1. Re: Stage one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The liver Jobs received was via Tennessee.

  4. ASIC invasion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oppression, totalitarianism, all maintained and executed in ASICs specifically design to carry out these types of functions.

  5. China leads the way by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Once again the fearful USA is left behind by the boldness of China in adopting and utilizing advanced technology. Under globalism, those who do not keep up are destined to be left behind in the dust. There is also a significant first-mover advantage as whoever adopts these technologies first realizes a distinct advantage over the timid ones who wait too long. The American response has been one of avoidance and evasion. Why? Because Americans seem to fear that if they stare at reality squarely, they will find reality staring back in a most discomforting way.

    A lot of smart people are starting to argue in favor of the China Model. It avoids the pitfalls of American dumbocracy, of which the hazards are only too clear after the results 2016 election. Political meritocracy has a lot of upside, in fact a better word for it might be "vertical democratic meritocracy". Democracy works well at the lower levels of government. But, in a huge country, as you go up the political chain of command, the issues become more complex and mistakes become more costly. Thereâ(TM)s a need to institutionalize a system to select and promote leaders with superior qualities. China has it, and America is trying with all its might to pretend globalism doesn't exist and it can still get by with its antiquated system. Democracy on the bottom, experimentation in the middle, and meritocracy on top is a good way of thinking about how to govern a large country.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    1. Re: China leads the way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great comedy bro. You should do stand up on Kimmel.

    2. Re:China leads the way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope this superior model pays you well for your nauseating posts, you chinese troll.

    3. Re:China leads the way by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Meritocracy don't work if the criterion for selecting who has the most merit is their bank balance or in which family he was born. Many people think they have merit when in fact they only got there because they have rich parents and rich friends.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    4. Re:China leads the way by gtall · · Score: 1

      Political meritocracy is where a change of rulers causes the old clan running the show to become immediately unmeritorious and scheduled for re-education, the latter conveniently maxes out their remaining years among the quick as they are destined to be unmeritorious during this time.

    5. Re:China leads the way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny how you pretend you're posting it with an iPhone by manually entering â(TM) , chinese 10 cent troll was previously a hot topic on /.

    6. Re:China leads the way by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Informative

      What "of which the hazards are only too clear after the results 2016 election"?
      The US voted and the election was won. Every state had its vote counted.
      Give a good speech, have a good candidate and win the states needed.
      Re "China has" Communism that gave the world the Cultural Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      Re "promote leaders with superior qualities."? China was filling its university system with students who did not pass entrance exams. It's not "superior qualities" when the only question is about been loyal to the Communist party.
      So now China has to use facial recognition glasses to track people who would spread freedom and democracy.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    7. Re:China leads the way by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Fortunately, that's not what the Chinese use. Officials rise on good performances. Compare this to the US system where officials either rise on advertising spending (elected government) or having went to an Ivy League school (unelected government).

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    8. Re: China leads the way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You obviously have no idea how the Chinese work:

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_China
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China

      You rise by who you know and who can buy off, nothing more.

    9. Re:China leads the way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A lot of smart people are starting to argue in favor of the China Model. It avoids the pitfalls of American dumbocracy, of which the hazards are only too clear after the results 2016 election.

      I'm no fan of naively applying American-style democracy everywhere, expecting that to magically fix all problems. However, there are many forms of democracy, and some are worthy of attention; and to be honest, what is called democracy in the US, is a poor representative of democracy - more empty ritual than actual people-power. China arguably has democracy - the Chinese government certainly thinks so - and perhaps we shouldn't simply dismiss the claim out of hand, simply because 'they are commies'. We should be willing to learn - take what actually works and improve our own system.

      But of course, in all these discussions people always forget that democracy can only ever work, if all follow the rules and everybody has access to trustworthy information - that is unbiased news, among other things - as well as the ability to understand and critically evaluate information. As things are at the moment, the Chinese are far better equipped for the challenges of democracy than the Americans.

    10. Re:China leads the way by larryjoe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Furthermore, the fatal flaw in the Chinese system is the inability to peacefully change leaders, governments, and laws. The current US president's tenure and his party's hold of much of governmental power will eventually end regardless of how much that president and party attempt to hold onto power. The US system allows the election of "undesirable" leaders but also provides a way to get rid of those undesirables. In the Chinese system, the undesirables never leave. The Chinese Communist Party has an unbreakable grip on the country. It remains to be seen if the current Chinese president will yield power at the traditional end of his terms or if he will adopt the Putin model of government.

    11. Re:China leads the way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can come to Canada and see how great the Chinese system is,
      hint, all the them are trying to get out if they can, the local newspaper in Vancouver is full of ads from "immigration consultant" that will help you immigrate as fast as possible ........

    12. Re:China leads the way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China's trying lots of stuff - that's the "boldness" you're talking of, right?

      But of course, not everything's a bed of roses.

      Bargain rate manufacturing? Hyper pollution.
      Child birth laws? Deficit of women.
      Aggressive real estate development? Ghost towns.
      Rampant IP theft? Tarnished international reputation.

      China's model of government is also them trying something. It's relatively new. It may have merit, but it's a wee bit early to conclude.

      America is trying with all its might to pretend globalism doesn't exist and it can still get by with its antiquated system

      Considering America's economy and cultural presence around the world... if you consider that "just getting by"... I cant imagine the judgement you reserve for the rest of the world.

      the fearful USA

      Pretty sure you're the one here trying to instill fear of China.

    13. Re:China leads the way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You moron. This would never work in the USA. Can you imagine the software identifying the wrong person as a dangerous criminal? We'd have a lot more deaths by cop if this was in place in the USA.

    14. Re:China leads the way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "First mover advantage" is what you get when you bring a revolutionary product to the market, and your name becomes, at least for a time, synonymous with something desirable. "iPhone" is the most recent example I can think of. It seldom lasts long.

      When it comes to deploying technology that "benefits society", rather than attracting consumers, being first mover is actually a handicap. It means others can watch and learn from your mistakes, and their rollouts will go faster and smoother. They may even get to leapfrog a whole generation. That's why America is currently lagging so badly in broadband speeds, and has certainly not led the world in 3G/4G/5G mobile rollouts.

    15. Re:China leads the way by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      AC "Can you imagine the software identifying the wrong person as a dangerous criminal?"
      That would make a powerful fictional action movie script.
      A bad corporation was having local law enforcement problems in one state.
      Some network alternations at a city and state level.
      Photograph every city and state investigator.
      Feed that altered data back into a federal facial recognition system as local sovereign citizens.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  6. Interesting times.... by meerling · · Score: 1

    Face recognition just isn't good enough yet for that kind of risk.
    They have way too high of a false positive rate, but odds are the higher ups will pull a coverup to hid that and claim great success instead.
    As to a portable version with much less processing power, it's just begging to be less accurate.
    Of course there will also be false negatives that will let wanted criminals get away, unless they're caught by the normal methods, but I'm more worried about the innocents that will be jailed.

    1. Re:Interesting times.... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      Face recognition just isn't good enough yet for that kind of risk.
      They have way too high of a false positive rate, but odds are the higher ups will pull a coverup to hid that and claim great success instead.
      As to a portable version with much less processing power, it's just begging to be less accurate.
      Of course there will also be false negatives that will let wanted criminals get away, unless they're caught by the normal methods, but I'm more worried about the innocents that will be jailed.

      As long as positives are treated as "possible" suspects and not "definite criminals" false-positives aren't a problem. Just check their ID and see if they are the right match or not. I can leap to assumptions about how police in various countries might act, but I can't say with any accuracy.

      I'm not opposed to police using facial recognition glass to find suspects in a crowd; I am opposed to them (or videos) being used as a log of who went where- if non-criminals are tracked and logged with their movements recorded... that gets into the "too creepy and authoritarian" path. As long as the glasses are just used to identify "possible-suspects" where a computer algorithm legitimately makes a match, I'm ok.

      Don't log the negative faces- and everyone is innocent until proven guilty... that's the golden rule here.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:Interesting times.... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      China seems willing to sacrifice innocent people for "societal improvement" or whatever euphemism they're using..

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  7. one word by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    one word Gattaca

  8. Go to the source. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Informative

    Engadget just reposted what Gizmodo wrote which reposted what WSJ and Sixth Tone wrote.

    These are the real sources:
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/c...
    http://www.sixthtone.com/news/...

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Go to the source. by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2

      I started with the WSJ article but submitted the Engadget link because the WSJ is paywalled.

    2. Re:Go to the source. by swell · · Score: 1

      I don't suppose that /. gets a kickback from various favored links(?) Over and over, regardless of the story, they find a link to NYT, Engadget, etc. Almost never is the link to a source.

      --
      ...omphaloskepsis often...
  9. We are on the way to becoming a Betazoid-like race by guacamole · · Score: 1

    The technology will inevitably make it so that people have no privacy or secrets whatsoever. The technology will soon allow every member of the society to know the location and activities or every other member. Everyone will know others' secrets, and then there will be no secrets between the humans, except those in their thoughts.

    The next logical step is that we either adopt telepathic theology or evolve to become a race of telepaths, that like in the Star Trek.

  10. I already feel safer by houghi · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Luckily they are not in the cloud, because that would be unsafe. It is much better to give each individual the database, because what could go wrong?

    Or does 'In the cloud' now means 'On a server'? (Was this an example of a rhetorical question).

    Not looking at the privacy issues here, just at the technical side of it. Having it on a dedicated server should be a lot safer. The time might go a bit up, but not to seconds. That way when one gets into the wrong hands, it will not be able to abuse it. For a criminal knowing if he will be recognized or not with his fake beard is very interesting information.

    Combine it with fingerprint recognition and it should be a lot safer again. Say a device gets stolen and they cut of the police persons finger. That device can still be useless as the device can be blocked from elsewhere. You just block the secure access from that device.

    Because what they are doing now is selling the database and you get a free device with it.

    If I where a criminal (disclaimer: IANAC) I would not like that they use it, but the way they did it would give me a lot of options.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:I already feel safer by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2

      Some notes for you:

      1) Bandwidth is an issue. Live video streaming from every cop wearing these simply is not practical.

      2) Power is an issue. Sure, it takes some cycles to do the processing, but in a portable unit you don't need to constantly transmit a high bandwidth stream.

      3) Encrypted devices that don't allow direct reading of the database and will lock every 12 hours are possible. And they have a very limited hardware interface, so you'd need someone to steal the device and crack it to get more than a cop's shift out of it.

      4) The stored information would be (more or less) public record. People wanted by the police or people with convictions and release conditions being watched by the police - stuff you'll see published by your local news media or in FOI-accessible court records.

      In short, so long as they can't scan and track every face and keep logs over long periods of time for data mining, this device isn't really a big problem. However, it ought to be looked at closely (at least in those nations where we care about privacy) so that it doesn't become a monster as the technology improves.

  11. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Seriously fuck this, we were supposed to have a colony on the Moon, Mars, or the belt in time for this shit. We were supposed to secede and leave the wealth hording lords and ladies and their simpering jackboot glassholes to oppress the unemployed welfare cases in the gravity well of Earth while we took the high frontier where we could easily defend ourselves from their machinations.
    Was that Falcon Heavy launch of a suited dummy in a car just to remind us that we did too little too late to escape and thrive as humans?

    1. Re:The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by DivineKnight · · Score: 1

      Some people want to explore the Universe, other want to rule the Earth.

    2. Re:The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by gtall · · Score: 2

      Space is amazingly big, so big you wouldn't believe it. And filled with radiation. Get over it, the Universe hates us as evidenced by the cue balls it periodically tries to bean us with.

  12. Re:We are on the way to becoming a Betazoid-like r by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It could happen. Brain-computer interfaces plus no privacy for anything we do with a computer is basically telepathy.

  13. Vertical democratic meritocracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just wow. No idea whether you're being sarcastic or not.

    > Democracy on the bottom, experimentation in the middle, and meritocracy on top [...]

    Yah, right. And Big Brother Everywhere. From a social score system to facial recognition in lieu of home keys (data which conveniently gets shared with everything else, that's data economy!).

    As I said, I don't know whether you are sarcastic (but I *do* know that our Minister of the Interior must be having hot wet dreams when seeing what the Chinese Government is able to get away with).

  14. Re:We are on the way to becoming a Betazoid-like r by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    Are you kidding! Our elites will never allow this system to survive them. They're getting their asses kicked right now from leaked emails and documents, and you'll be damn sure this kind of crap doesn't happen again.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  15. Re:We are on the way to becoming a Betazoid-like r by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Considering that even the most subtle of flirt behaviours will immediately be exposed to everyone, it seems to me that only people who can read other people's minds will be able to get laid. Evolving into a race of telepaths will be trivial.

  16. Re:We are on the way to becoming a Betazoid-like r by gtall · · Score: 1

    "telepathic theology"...media saturation by Franklin Graham and His Merry Band of Rich White Folk?

  17. Re:We are on the way to becoming a Betazoid-like r by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The technology will soon allow every member of the society to know the location and activities or every other member.

    No. No it won't. It will allow 'the authorities' and the 1% to know everything about everyone else. This information will not be available to the rest of us.

  18. Meanwhile in the USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The TSA continues to hire illiterate mouth breathers.

    1. Re:Meanwhile in the USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well, that's one way to keep them off the streets. It's like a social program that the Republicans like.

  19. Re:C'mon, that's unpossible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's what make China the best place to work out the kinks. If it works there, it'll work anywhere, even in Detroit.. if y'all get mah drift!

  20. Prosopagnosia by iTrawl · · Score: 2

    Can I get one with a reduced database containing just my friends and people I've met a few times? I need the thing to project a HUD onto my retina and tell me who they are and maybe some metadata about what they do and how we met. People don't like it when I walk past them like they don't exist, and I don't realise I'm doing it.

    --
    "Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
    1. Re:Prosopagnosia by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      This exact use would be so awesome for me. I'm OK with faces, but linking them to names is really, really difficult for me unless I know the person very well... which can make business meetings awkward for me.

      If it could be made more subtle, I'd love a set of camera/HUD glasses that would remind me of people's names and where I know them from.

    2. Re:Prosopagnosia by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      With men outnumbering women by some margin due to China's population policies, I'd be wary that this technology allows lonely police officers to woo girls. Officer sees attractive woman, looks her up online and instantly knows all her secrets from social media. Creepy.

  21. Re:C'mon, that's unpossible by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Dude, that's racist. On the racism scale of black to white, that's at least Mexican.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  22. The people feel so safe now by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 1

    China really took the Orwellian path.

    --
    sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
  23. Re:We are on the way to becoming a Betazoid-like r by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is so much noise out there, that leaked E-mails don't mean shit. There are a lot of political figures which should be facing a judge (and yes, on both sides), and it won't happen, unless someone falls out of favor with everyone involved so they wind up a scapegoat.

    I do envy EU countries. The only multi-state government in the world that is immune to xenophobia, graft, and corruption. No two party politics, no party selecting a candidate, even though election votes show differently (like the Dems and their superdelegates), they take foreign influence on their elections seriously, and actually give a crap about their people.

  24. Developed In China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We can be pretty sure that the tech behind it wasn't sourced from Apple.

    http://www.newsweek.com/iphone-x-racist-apple-refunds-device-cant-tell-chinese-people-apart-woman-751263

  25. Two Words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Two words: "grammar school."

    1. Re:Two Words by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      Kelsey Grammar - that's the school in Little Britain, yeah?

  26. Fake news by Excelcia · · Score: 2, Funny

    Fake news. We all know that all Chinese look the same.

  27. irony: it makes them more vulnerable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This has been on the menu for a few years.

    The irony is this: the computer security is long backdoored, and so the "who are you" is authorable by a number of 3rd parties including several nation-state actors.

    This is an exercise in "keeping the average citizen suppressed", which monarchs/oligopolies prefer, but at the cost of introducing a larger external attack surface.

    Humans. The more you squeeze your hands, the more water runs through your fingers. The real trick is to lift the water up with cupped hands instead of trying to use strength to crush it.

    EngrStudent

  28. Good thing China is so small by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LLVision says that in tests, the system was able to pick out individuals from a database of 10,000 people and it could do so in 100 milliseconds

    It's a really good thing that China only has 10,000 people living there.

  29. Re: Ching Chong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Follow them into restrooms do you? Pervert.

  30. Re:We are on the way to becoming a Betazoid-like r by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Everyone will know others' secrets, and then there will be no secrets between the humans,

    I know what you did last summer.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  31. So its true ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 0
    All Chinese look alike and even trained Chinese policemen need machine assistance to tell them apart ....

    I remember a classic sketch from some old comedy show. Two white guys rob a convenience store. The police ask the Korean shop owner, "Did they have face mask?", Kim says, "no". "Can you identify them?" Kim says, "White guy all look same same"

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  32. The end of freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mark my words. We will populate these with stolen databases of pics say DMV and mark everyone Democrat or Republican.
    Jew or Baptist list goes on.

  33. Computer assisted/enhanced police work by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To me this looks like an example of how these technologies should be used. Rather than for illegal dragnet surveillance and profiling that turns everyone into a suspect, they're using facial recognition to help cops do what they've always done: Look for criminal suspects for whom the police already have probable cause or an arrest warrant. It's probably a lot cheaper and easier to manage than the massive databases of innocent citizens that the NSA, CIA, FBI, DEA, etc., are collecting and is far less likely to suffer from false positives and negatives.

    --
    Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
    1. Re:Computer assisted/enhanced police work by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 1

      Turns out I was wrong. The Chinese seem to be using this to identify political activists, religious minorities, and people with debts. That's going a lot further than probable cause or warrants. Seems China's just as bad with tech as every other government :(

      --
      Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
  34. Not surprising by joe_frisch · · Score: 1

    I would expect an authoritarian government to use all the tools at its disposal to run the country efficiently. Its not something I want to see happen in the US, but seems in line with Chinese policies and not particularly evil.

  35. Source code for glasses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    look_for('chins')

  36. But they all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But they all look the same, so what is the point? How could it work!?