New Chinese Facial Recognition Camera Reduces False Positives
January 19, 2020
In a move that should surprise nobody, China has created the ultimate facial recognition hardware. The Telegraph reports, “China Unveils 500 Megapixel Camera that Can Identify Every Face in a Crowd of Tens of Thousands.” Researchers revealed the “super camera,” which can see four times more detail than the human eye, at China’s International Industry Fair. Of course, no surveillance tech is complete without an AI; writer Freddie Hayward tells us:
“The camera’s artificial intelligence will be able to scan a crowd and identify an individual within seconds. Samantha Hoffman, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told the ABC that the government has massive databases of people’s images and that data generated from surveillance video can be ‘fed into a pool of data that, combined with AI processing, can generate tools for social control, including tools linked to the Social Credit System’.”
Yes, the Social Credit System. China is no stranger to spying on its people, and this development will only make their current practices more effective. We learn:
“China currently has an estimated 200 million CCTV cameras watching over its citizens. For the past few years the country has been building a social credit system that will generate a score for each citizen based upon data about their lives, such as their credit score, whether they donate to charity, and their parenting ability. Punishments and rewards that citizens will receive based upon their score include access to better schools and universities and restricted travel. The current CCTV network is a central tool in gathering data about its citizens, but the cameras aren’t always powerful enough to take a clear picture of someone’s face in a crowd. The new 500 megapixel, or 500 million pixel, camera will help to remedy this.”
Indeed it will. I suppose if you are going to build a social system around snooping on the people, it should be as accurate as possible. You wouldn’t want to keep one citizen out of a good school because someone who looked like them was caught littering.
Cynthia Murrell, January 19, 2020
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