Chinese Police Begin Tracking Citizens With Face-Recognizing Smart Glasses (reuters.com) 112
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
At a highway check point on the outskirts of Beijing, local police are this week testing out a new security tool: smart glasses that can pick up facial features and car registration plates, and match them in real-time with a database of suspects. The AI-powered glasses, made by LLVision, scan the faces of vehicle occupants and the plates, flagging with a red box and warning sign to the wearer when any match up with a centralized "blacklist".
The test -- which coincides with the annual meeting of China's parliament in central Beijing -- underscores a major push by China's leaders to leverage technology to boost security in the country... Wu Fei, chief executive of LLVision, said people should not be worried about privacy concerns because China's authorities were using the equipment for "noble causes", catching suspects and fugitives from the law. "We trust the government," he told Reuters at the company's headquarters in Beijing.
This weekend while China's President Xi Jinping is expected to push through a reform allowing him to stay in power indefinitely, Reuters reports that the Chinese goverment is pushing the use of cutting-edge technology "to track and control behavior that goes against the interests of the ruling Communist Party online and in the wider world... A key concern is that blacklists could include a wide range of people stretching from lawyers and artists to political dissidents, charity workers, journalists and rights activists...
"The new technologies range from police robots for crowd control, to drones to monitor border areas, and artificially intelligent systems to track and censor behavior online," Reuters reports, citing one Hong Kong researcher who argues that China now sees internet and communication technologies "as absolutely indispensable tools of social and political control."
The test -- which coincides with the annual meeting of China's parliament in central Beijing -- underscores a major push by China's leaders to leverage technology to boost security in the country... Wu Fei, chief executive of LLVision, said people should not be worried about privacy concerns because China's authorities were using the equipment for "noble causes", catching suspects and fugitives from the law. "We trust the government," he told Reuters at the company's headquarters in Beijing.
This weekend while China's President Xi Jinping is expected to push through a reform allowing him to stay in power indefinitely, Reuters reports that the Chinese goverment is pushing the use of cutting-edge technology "to track and control behavior that goes against the interests of the ruling Communist Party online and in the wider world... A key concern is that blacklists could include a wide range of people stretching from lawyers and artists to political dissidents, charity workers, journalists and rights activists...
"The new technologies range from police robots for crowd control, to drones to monitor border areas, and artificially intelligent systems to track and censor behavior online," Reuters reports, citing one Hong Kong researcher who argues that China now sees internet and communication technologies "as absolutely indispensable tools of social and political control."
Here's to creative anarchy! (Score:2)
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and we can roll out Tank Man 9000 and see how well they work ageist them
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Re:Here's to creative anarchy! (Score:5, Informative)
You do not understand systemic differences. In China, law is applied different both on executive and judiciary level. Protections you get in US do not exist. Where protections exist, they are applied selectively.
Example: In US, if there's a suspicion of drug use in a private club, police has to go through a long process to obtain a warrant, and even then doesn't have ability to just mass incarcerate everyone inside. In China the normal way to handle such suspicion is to simply go in, detain everyone and force everyone in the club to pee in a test cup while policeman is watching. And if you fail, legal system will crush you, as China's legal system absolutely abhors drug users.
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In China, black foreigners get routine midnight visits in their homes from the jackbooted police officers. Who will go through your papers and if they find it necessary, your belongings. There is no recourse for this - they are fully within their rights to do so, and you're legally required to register your home address with your local police.
On the streets, it's not just the police who'll grab you every once in a while. The locals themselves will do it. Actively. Blacks are treated like complete and utter
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When you have a thread about China, and you're ignorant enough to make a direct comparison to US and then suggest that US is bad, you need a serious reality check.
I recommend learning basics of the language, and then spending at least half a year living and working in the country. It will give you perspective on just how deeply naive your view is.
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Not in China. Issues I'm talking about are in your face in such a harsh fashion, you could not avoid them without living in a literal ivory tower.
The fact that you cannot even imagine a society where these issues would be so "in your face" that you could not ignore them if you had to live and work within this society, even if you maintained your general social bubble merely reinforces my earlier point of your deep naivete on just how different China is from US on the most basic levels of human interaction.
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Of course. Because they're Chinese and the system favours them in some ways. And there's still no redress if you have been actually wronged by the system.
Did you not notice at all that my entire complaint was about the fact that people here do not even understand that the system is dramatically different, and as such not comparable?
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1. You're completely wrong on China's ethnic situation. Han are nowhere close to 99.999%
2. "Hypothetical" black person? Are you suggesting that African gastarbeiters and African envoys of various types are "hypothetical people" and not actual real living people?
3. US system can and does convict rich people for the same crimes as poor people, using the same legal code. If you knew anything about the history, you'd know that this is a very novel invention in humanity, where traditionally aristocratic class li
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You must be utterly unaware of the system and basic principles on which it is built to not believe it.
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The fact that you don't even understand the difference between judicial and executive pretty much underscores just how little knowledge you actually have.
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In China, if foreign person (not suspect, just person) is black, police will routinely visit his apartment in the middle of the night, and spend an hour or two going through his papers and his belongings.
Process repeats every few months.
You US folks really need to get out of your country to get some perspective if you think you have it bad.
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Police routinely gun down unarmed people who pose no physical threat. Our federal government got caught routing US cit
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In China, on the streets a black person is automatically a suspect. You won't just have problems with police. You'll have old men from the age of Cultural Revolution who will follow you when they see you on the street, and when they think you're doing something suspicious, they'll report you to the police.
Who will likely detain you for a few hours for questioning.
The fact that you think even remotely that US is in the same ballpark when it comes to human rights as China, or heck, playing the same game, you'
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I understand your views and I will stop casting pearls before the swine.
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Your compari
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You're still missing the forest for the trees. In US, no matter how horrible you view the "racist" offences as, there's always systemic redress available. Even for foreign nationals who commit serious offences. The legal code and court system actually grant people inalienable rights and when these rights are violated, redress through judiciary is available.
In China, not only are abuses far more horrible, but there is no redress whatsoever. If you're a foreigner in China and you get in trouble with the syste
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Correct. And if that actually happened, he'll go to jail. That is how modern Western justice system works for everyone. Doesn't need to be the cop or the dad. We have consequences for certain criminal actions, and when said criminal actions are committed, there's legal redress for the victims.
It's the best humanity has had by the huge margin.
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Which system would you suggest that actually worked in human history that would be a better one?
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You didn't answer the question.
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You still didn't answer the question.
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It's a good thing I don't have to care about "America's likes and dislikes". And the fact that you consistently refuse to answer a question central to your claims demonstrates your awareness of the fact that your claims are false.
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It always feels good to hit the nerve of an asshole like you.
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Someone is looking to get them killed? It's fairly easy to track such devices in a society where community level spying and informing is commonplace.
Watched season 2 of Black Mirror a couple weeks (Score:2)
ago. This is right out of the season finale.
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While everybody is asleep, evil seeps back into the world and takes over. China is just a bit ahead of the others.
Facial disguises soon to come (Score:2)
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Hollywood does a damned good job, but how long before some company sells cotton balls that will stay comfortably in your cheeks for hours at a time, or shit, I dunno, wigs, eye glasses.
Your suggestions prove you don't know anything about facial recognition tech, which uses points on the face which cannot be changed by
the methods you suggest.
Re:Facial disguises soon to come (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder how much trouble you'd get into if you wore an obvious papercraft mask with a photo of your own face photoshopped onto the front.
It strikes me as one of those "ain't I clever" as you peer out between the prison bars kind of deals.
"Security" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: "Security" (Score:2, Interesting)
Having lived in China, the average citizen does not feel oppressed and is quite proud of the country. On the surface it actually feels more "free" than the US. All the "don't signs" are gone or are free to ignore, you can walk on the grass, park in any free spot at any time, do a u-turn absolutely anywhere, no ID checks to buy beer or cigarettes. But challenge the government, yeah not a wise thing to do.
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Having lived in China, the average citizen does not feel oppressed and is quite proud of the country.
China should crowdsource this operation and provide these glasses to average citizens and open access for all to the database. With cash prizes for catching criminals!
Then, anyone can make some spare money on the side while helping law enforcement by playing "Amateur Glasshole Bounty Hunter".
Of course, Google has probably already patented "Amateur Glasshole Bounty Hunter", so China will need to pay some royalties to them.
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Gotta Catch 'Em All
Re: "Security" (Score:1)
Considering the history of China, they will probably never revolt. They've been occupied by tyrants for centuries, they never did anything. Before the communists, they were being dominated by a small group of people.
Civil liberties and all, but... (Score:2)
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It's not actually that hard. A good few years ago I came across a facial recognition platform called Predator and that was using much older tech. I imagine the glasses are just the imaging and display component, the actual computation will be done somewhere else and wirelessly transmitted. Glyph recognition can find a basic face shape easily, this reduces the computation involved significantly as it can focus the attention on to just the face part of the image feed.
There's lots of computation involved, sure
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Glyph recognition can find a basic face shape easily
Indeed, even on their low-res image you can spot where the face is...
this reduces the computation involved significantly as it can focus the attention on to just the face part of the image feed.
hmm, but given that poor image, I doubt they'd manage recognizing who it is in the picture.
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I doubt they'd manage recognizing who it is in the picture.
I think they can; after only a few seconds, they can probably obtain tens of usable images from various viewpoints. And they can probably factor in many other data they have about people such as where they live as well as recent other recognitions in the area. Perhaps it's even easier if they just track everybody always everywhere... and if they use spy satellites and autonomous imaging drones over their major cities, they can probably track everybody that can be seen from above, making all this so much eas
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You kidding? Orwellian surveillance *is* Google's business goal. Any 'life improvement' caused by their products is simply the bait necessary to get people to willingly participate, given their lack of ability to legally force people to carry smartphones etc. (No matter though, since it's a more effective form of compliance assurance than governmental coercion anyway).
Miniluv could never be a government agency, at least not in America.
Glasses respond (Score:2, Funny)
Arr rook same!
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Ethnic groups that one is not familiar with indeed do look "the same". One's brain is simply not trained to process differences in the new group due to lack of exposure.
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At billion point five people, one in a million false positive means 1500 faces will "Arr rook same!"
Or about this many people. [gettyimages.com]
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Indeed. About the most extremely stupid state a citizen can be in.
Well, duh! (Score:2)
I distinctly recall people telling us "why they would need hundreds of thousands of censors to control the internet in China!"
Guess what? They did just that.
China is great at people control. (Score:3, Interesting)
America is car based but China is more pedestrian. That is why US police cars have cameras that have license plate recognition and China has facial recognition. Do not worry America, soon the police body cams will have face recognition.
Re:China is great at people control. (Score:4, Informative)
China also has massive numbers of cameras taking pictures of cars on just about every road you could imagine. And they have lots [mmta.co.uk] of cars.
In Capitalist China... (Score:1)
state glassholes YOU.
If the resolution is as bad as the photo shown... (Score:2)
Chinese Facial Recognition Computer Crashes (Score:1)
After being online for less than 15 minutes, the computer that controls the Chinese governments Facial Recognition system crashed. The computer, exasperated reported:
"Fatal Error 70013 - They All Look the Same"