
China’s facial-recognition systems crunch data from cameras to monitor citizens - dx034
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-all-seeing-surveillance-state-feared-in-the-west-is-a-reality-in-china-1498493020
======
bmcusick
Non-Chinese shouldn't kid ourselves. Our governments want to do this too, and
probably will. Drones with gigapixel cameras hovering over metro regions.
Security cameras and police cars that continuously scan the faces of
pedestrians and other drivers. It will happen.

~~~
blackbagboys
Unlike the PRC, most of us live in governments where there is significantly
more decentralization of power, and where those power centers are
significantly more responsive to public pressure.

It's incumbent upon all of us to apply that pressure and work to maintain that
decentralization. It's _especially_ incumbent upon technologists to a) refuse
to develop or implement these types of systems and b) develop counter-
measures.

~~~
djKianoosh
what would be a "socially acceptable" counter-measure to getting your face
scanned randomly out in public?

~~~
nyolfen
a visor with (very, very) bright IR LEDs over your face could hide you from
camera sensors; i've seen something like this used to defeat license plate
scanners, and i know that LEDs have greatly improved power efficiency in the
last decade, but i don't have any experience in this kind of thing. maybe
someone can pick up this idea and run with it if it's feasible.

this wouldn't defeat something like gait detection though:
[http://www.geradts.com/html/Documents/gait.htm](http://www.geradts.com/html/Documents/gait.htm)

~~~
swiley
Do remember IR can damage your (and other's) retina even though it can be hard
to see.

------
baybal2
Article

SHENZHEN—Gan Liping pumped her bike across a busy street, racing to beat a
crossing light before it turned red. She didn’t make it. Immediately, her face
popped up on two video screens above the street. “Jaywalkers will be captured
using facial-recognition technology,” the screens said.

Facial-recognition technology, once a specter of dystopian science fiction, is
becoming a feature of daily life in China, where authorities are using it on
streets, in subway stations, at airports and at border crossings in a vast
experiment in social engineering. Their goal: to influence behavior and
identify lawbreakers.

Ms. Gan, 31 years old, had been caught on camera crossing illegally here once
before, allowing the system to match her two images. Text displayed on the
crosswalk screens identified her as a repeat offender.

“I won’t ever run a red light again,” she said.

~~~
loudmax
These types of stories bring to David Brin's approach to privacy:
[http://www.davidbrin.com/transparency.html](http://www.davidbrin.com/transparency.html)

Brin's argument is that as the technology to record everything becomes so
cheap that the cost is trivial, trying to enforce privacy and anonymity in a
sea of cameras is a losing battle. We're better off as a society if we allow
the recording and de-anonymization of public spaces, but we should also make
this information free to anyone. In return for the loss privacy in public
spaces, we should demand that the wealthy and powerful give up some of their
privacy as well. Obviously, the wealthy and powerful will fight to keep their
privacy, but as recording devices become ubiquitous the landscape favors those
pushing to set information free rather than those trying to secure it.

To relate it to the story here, rather than fighting the anonymity of private
citizens who commit minor trespasses like jaywalking, we should be focusing on
uncovering trespasses committed by those in power. Say, the financial dealings
of Xi Jinping or Donald Trump.

~~~
trevos
Completely disagree. Instead, we make it illegal to record people in public
spaces without warning and consent. Make it a criminal offence with strong
penalties, especially for the publication of people-identifying records. It
should be illegal to set up a camera on one's fence along a highway and
publish the license plates and times of cars passing by.

~~~
ghaff
Whether or not it's a good thing given the advent of ubiquitous facial
recognition software, that's never ever going to happen. You're basically
arguing for photography being banned in public spaces. The fact that would
almost certainly be unconstitutional in the US is probably the least of the
barriers to implementing such a law.

------
hammock
Passing thru the immigration checkpoint in Shanghai and having a kiosk take my
photo without warning, and respond with a dystopian smiley face and shutter
sound, was one of the more creepy things to happen to me.

~~~
captainmuon
Yes! Recently had the same experience at that airport.

It's not so much the fact of taking the picture that disturbed me - I fully
expected to be catalogued, and filmed, in 1) an international airport and 2)
in China. OK, if I had my way with society, we wouldn't be doing that, but
that's the status quo right now and I can deal with it.

It's that I felt I was being tricked into it. Having your biometric picture
taken and saved is somewhat intimate, I want to at least mentally prepare
myself and pose for the camera. It's mainly an emotional problem. It is just a
bit short shoving somebody into a foto booth.

My personal opinion is that China is often quite tone-deaf when it comes to
being dystopian and creepy. The actual security practices are not too
different from what we have in the west, but the way they present them make
them seem like from a bad movie.

~~~
ghaff
Of course, traveling from most places they already have a photo from your visa
application. (I'd also note that, at least according to the visa processing
service, they're very fussy about the quality of the visa photo. Absolutely no
shadow, contrasting shirt, etc.)

------
lettergram
Interesting, I think I saw this same exact example at GTC 2016. Although, on a
quick search on mobile - I can't find the talk...

It was a Chinese company discussing their surveillance in major cities and
their use of GPUs for their form of video compression. With the specific goal
of keeping the data as small as possible.

It was the most dystopian talk I've ever been at, and the presentors were all
smiles and laughs.

I honestly question how well it works at scale with hundreds of millions of
faces at different angles. I asked them about this, and they said it won't be
long now to fix. Their explanation was they only need one accurate view of
their face to tag those people. Then they just track them where ever they go.

~~~
gonzerelli
Not just that, but everyone has a unique way they walk, called their gait, so
if you are identified once (usually by facial recognition) your gait can be
used to identify you forever after, even if you try to hide your identity.
Only way to go undetected then is to purposely change your gait and other
things, but the important thing here is: We are at a point where the effort
you have to go through to remain anonymous in the public is so high that it
may not be worth the effort.

~~~
sangnoir
A few years back,I read about Chinese research on gait analysis via floor
tiles that can uniquely identify you by calculations on weight and shear
forces as you walk over them. I thought it was evil, but brilliant, out-of-the
box thinking.

------
verroq
No doubt that once voice recognition, speech to text and NLP advances enough
you'd have public safety microphones always looking out for counter-
revolutionary speech and terrorist activity.

1984 is fantasy because the telescreens couldn't scale with a human listener.
Worry not, deep learning will bridge the gap.

What a disaster!

------
Jonnax
Was going through a UK airport and noticed they had some cameras with a silly
looking LED light on them so I googled the manufacturer:
[http://www.hrsid.com/product-mflow#queue](http://www.hrsid.com/product-
mflow#queue)

They supply facial recognition hardware/software that can track you across
your journey in an airport accurately.

It's not a huge leap to get it over an entire CCTV network.

~~~
jloughry
The silly looking swirly light is intended to attract attention so that people
will look directly into the camera. [Seriously. I found it in a technical
description.]

That's evil.

------
pavement
Basically, in the future, we're all stone-faced automatons, helplessly clawing
at the walls of a social cage that demands our thoughts must be at least
neutral and aloof, if not explicitly happy and positive.

------
thablackbull
This has been reported and going on for a while.

* MIT Technology review has a story on this [1]

* Police robots in China scan all the faces they come across to identify fugitives [2]

* JD (i.e., the competitor of Alibaba which is somewhat analogous to Amazon here) You can pay for deliveries using facial recognition [3]

[1] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603494/10-breakthrough-
te...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603494/10-breakthrough-
technologies-2017-paying-with-your-face/)

[2] [http://gbtimes.com/china/police-robot-makes-china-
debut](http://gbtimes.com/china/police-robot-makes-china-debut)

[3] [https://qz.com/1009155/chinas-second-largest-ecommerce-
compa...](https://qz.com/1009155/chinas-second-largest-ecommerce-company-jd-
jd-just-used-a-robot-to-deliver-packages/)

~~~
jstanley
> * Police robots in China scan all the faces they come across to identify
> fugitives [2]

Not just China. Police in Wales (UK) are already using facial recognition
systems[1] and have in fact already arrested at least one person because of
it, just this month[2].

[1] [https://www.south-
wales.police.uk/en/newsroom/introduction-o...](https://www.south-
wales.police.uk/en/newsroom/introduction-of-facial-recognition-into-south-
wales-police/)

[2] [https://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2017/06/police-
automat...](https://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2017/06/police-automatic-
face-recognition/)

------
ausjke
while 90% of this is really bad to everyone(privacy, oppression,etc), I see
there is a small bright side , that the criminals can now be caught so quickly
these days there from some news I read.

the videos are all connected and facials are recognized quickly(a few seconds
for millions of faces), they tracked down criminals(and their cars) who was on
the run for thousands of miles all the way, in less than 24 hours sometimes. I
think the whole project was called something like "peaceful city project".

in US, where surveillance cameras are scarce to find in most public areas, you
need eye witness all the time, many cases take years to resolve, if at all.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Yeah, 'criminals' are caught quickly when they harm an important businessman's
mistresses' niece and it makes a good cctv news blurb. Not so much otherwise

~~~
newtem0
What is the story behind your screen name?

------
zabana
As if western governments were not already looking into this, (heck they''ve
probably already implemented such policies for all we know). The only
difference is that China is a no BS nation, they are actually (and
surprisingly) very open about it. Perhaps the most disturbing thing here is
not the story itself but the sheer hypocrisy of the western press / media. I
think the time has come for us to take a good look at ourselves in the mirror
and accept ourselves for what we actually are.

------
davidf18
Person of Interest TV show also on Netflix

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/)

Eagle Eye
movie:[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059786/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059786/)

------
abrkn
Our only hope is the continued incompetence of the governments purchasing and
operating this equipment.

------
deckardsdream
Keep reading about weird face recognition stuff. Like, this popped up on 4chan
yesterday...

[https://www.kairos.com/diversity-
recognition](https://www.kairos.com/diversity-recognition)

------
gozur88
The creepiness factor aside, I'm trying to imagine how you'd implement a
system to keep track of 1.3 billion people via face recognition. The hardware
demands alone are mind boggling.

------
cryoshon
welcome to having even less ability to resist the government

------
IshKebab
Mmm pretty sure every government is doing this. It's just more public in China
due to lack of data protection laws.

~~~
blackbagboys
This sort of absolutely false equivalence only serves to strengthen the
complacency of those of us who live in societies that retain greater degrees
of freedom.

~~~
srean
Could you elaborate a bit on the false equivalence. Depending on what you mean
I may or may not disagree.

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donald123
Anybody can take photos or videos in public area, so does the government. If
you are so paranoid about your privacy, stay at home, order online, simple as
that.

~~~
logfromblammo
If you are paranoid and a good make-up artist, there's CV Dazzle.

If you are paranoid and not a good make-up artist, you may have to settle for
glasses and clothing with integrated LEDs designed to confuse known
recognition algorithms. Or maybe just start wearing masks and veils in public.

~~~
newtem0
The machines will be able to id you by height, limb proportions, cadence and
hundreds of other things that cannot be concealed within reason.

~~~
logfromblammo
Yes, but they don't make a record of your gait at the DMV and print it on your
official ID card, do they?

They might be able to track John/Jane Doe #1 across a plaza, and maybe match
that up across multiple cameras, but without a reference database connecting
gaits to public identities, there is a possibility that without reasonable
suspicion, the data for John/Jane Doe #1 would have to be purged before it
could be linked to you.

Of course, a state-level actor that chooses not to obey the law could retain
those data indefinitely, and eventually identify you via statistical analyses.
If you don't want that to happen, you will need to get politically active and
make public oversight of agencies that perform surveillance of the public an
issue.

Otherwise, you might have to wear specialized clothing and shoes that change
heel height and sole shape as you walk.

