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Zimbabwe is Introducing a Mass Facial Recognition Project With Chinese AI Firm CloudWalk (qz.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: In March, the Zimbabwean government signed a strategic partnership with the Gunagzhou-based startup CloudWalk Technology to begin a large-scale facial recognition program throughout the country. The agreement, backed by the Chinese government's Belt and Road initiative, will see the technology primarily used in security and law enforcement and will likely be expanded to other public programs.

[...] Zimbabwe may be giving away valuable data as Chinese AI technologists stand to benefit from access to a database of millions of Zimbabwean faces Harare will share with CloudWalk. [...] CloudWalk has already recalibrated its existing technology through three-dimensional light technology in order to recognize darker skin tones. In order to recognize other characteristics that may differ from China's population, CloudWalk is also developing a system that recognizes different hairstyles and body shapes, another representative explained to the Global Times.

15 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Make it easier to identify the white people by oic0 · · Score: 1

    They're probably just using it to ramp up for another round of take whitey's land. Just put it in a major city and it gets you a list of names of the people you need to seize property from.

    1. Re:Make it easier to identify the white people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Didn't they pretty much finish routing all the white farmers? I know their farming output has gone down the drain and Mugabe begged the UN for financial and food aid after it turned out only whites were capable of working their ass off to produce food from shitty land.
      I think all aid to Africa should be stopped and let nature take its course. They'll learn only if they are allowed independence to learn even if through great costs, and independence can only be achieved by pulling the plug on all charity and aid. Otherwise you are just funneling copious amounts of money into a spoiled child's account and expecting it to develop a sense for independence, doesn't work that way.

    2. Re: Make it easier to identify the white people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Problem wasn't shitty land, Zimbabwe wasn't known as the Breadbasket of Africa for nothing. The problem was Mugabe drove off all the farmers and gave the land to pig ignorant cronies who had zero farming interest or experience.

    3. Re: Make it easier to identify the white people by oic0 · · Score: 1

      They thought the whites just sat back and collected the profits while doing no actual work on the farms and that anyone could step in and fill that role. Turns out they were wrong. Management is an actual skill and does require effort.

    4. Re:Make it easier to identify the white people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Let the Chinese have a try. They know how to run a country.

  2. The real question is by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 1

    do Chinese people think that all Blacks look the same?

    1. Re:The real question is by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Don't know. Maybe they should ask a computer to do it.

      https://www.wired.com/story/wh...

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  3. Most likely explanation by rmdingler · · Score: 1

    Facial recognition software is most likely to identify a person:

    When the person in the photo is a white man, the software is right 99 percent of the time.

    Extrapolating this level of accuracy to Asian and African citizens, since world citizens of European descent have slipped below 10% of the total, would seemingly be in the interest of the Chinese.

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

    Ernest Hemingway

  4. This ain't right ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... because Zimbabwe ain't got no fucking money

    The GDP value of Zimbabwe represents 0.03 percent of the world economy.

    .

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:This ain't right ... by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 1

      China will bring African slavery back in a new form...

  5. "...and other programs"

    This will allow the emperor to continuously track his political opponents and automatically flesh out his opponents' networks.

    It's just metadata, Geo. Washington, friend of Tom Jefferson and James Madison and Ben Franklin...no need to fear.

    Our own FBI and CIA say so!

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  6. The why by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    Track all people who attend any opposition party events.
    Track who gave a speech and all the faces of people who attended the political event.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  7. Perfect example of where it shouldn't be used. by PhantomHarlock · · Score: 1

    Given the history of the largely Shona-run ZANU-PF political party using its position to lord it over the largest minority ethnicity (the Ndeble) including the Matabeleland massacres in the early 1980s, there is a large possibility of it being used as the Chinese use it to repress minorities in certain regions.

    China has a very strong policy of embracing Africa. When I was in Zimbabwe last year I saw a brand new Chinese-built coal-coke plant, and they are making a heavy investment in rail transport in the region as well. Given ZANU-PF's Marxist origins as a socialist style worker's party, it is easy to see why China sees Zimbabwe as a ready bedfellow when western states and industry stay away. (or were driven away as is the case with Mugabe in the 1990s and 2000's)

  8. Dysfunctional country with messed up priorities by istartedi · · Score: 2

    This is a country so dysfunctional that they don't even have their own currency. They "solved" their hyperinflation by letting people use foreign currency. Managing the money supply in some way is a core function of government, and they just totally outsourced it. You'd think they'd want to fix that among other things in order to get back on track as a well-run country. Nope. Hi tech surveillance system. Yeah. That's the priority. At least they got rid of Mugabe after all this time; but I guess they've got a really big hole full of insanity to dig themselves out of. It's going to be a while.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  9. Black people by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

    Will be slaves to the chinese next.