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.

Comments

The why

[AHuxley]

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.

Dysfunctional country with messed up priorities

[istartedi]

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.