Getting a New Mobile Number in China Will Soon Involve a Facial-Recognition Test

China is taking every measure it can to verify the identities of its over 850 million mobile internet users. From a report: From Dec. 1, people applying for new mobile and data services will have to have their faces scanned by telecom providers, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a Sept. 27 statement. MIIT said the step was part of its efforts to "safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of citizens in the cyberspace" and to control phone and internet fraud. In addition to the facial-recognition test, phone users are also banned from passing their mobile phone numbers to others, and encouraged to check if numbers are registered under their name without their consent.

Next step

[Opportunist]

You're fully and 100% legally responsible for anything that could possible have come from your cell phone. Not to mention that using encryption that dear brother leader can't read is outlawed.

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[ItsJustAPseudonym]

Dear leader?

Oh pooh.

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[Opportunist]

Like it isn't that way already? Have you tried having an unpopular opinion and voicing it? Sure, governments won't do anything to stop you. But they also won't do anything to defend you to have that opinion.

The old Soviet joke is in full effect again:

Don't think.
If you think, don't speak.
If you think and speak, don't write.
If you think, speak and write, don't sign.
If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised.

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[Dutch Gun]

I see what you did there. [google.com]

We probably would never even have heard of that meme, and it would have likely died a few years ago except for the governments ham-handed crackdown. Score another for the Streisand Effect.

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[Opportunist]

If you have nothing to hide, why ain't you fucking in your back yard where I can see you?

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[Marxist Hacker 42]

There is a way out.

Post lots of comments that are lefty, OR libertarian. Post enough for them and your Karma will rise.

Unlike with faceblock, which seems to keep your "posts against community standards" forever and just grant you longer periods of facebook jail.

I guess I don't log in here enough, I didn't know Cowboy Neal had died. RIP.

Same as it ever was

[Tablizer]

This is expected from a totalitarian state. I bet they also ask for finger and ass prints.

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[drinkypoo]

This is expected from a totalitarian state. I bet they also ask for finger and ass prints.

Finger-in-ass prints. That way they get a fingerprint and a DNA sample.

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[Tablizer]

I'm not watching that CSI episode.

Well, it's China

[registrations_suck]

1). What do you expect?

2). Who fucking cares?

You can make the argument that the same is coming to a country near you. OK, let's talk about that. But China? Who gives a fuck?

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[Jarwulf]

Nobody cares, the most important thing in the world over in the West is arguing over transgender bathrooms.

Re: Well, it's China

[backslashdot]

Because we arenâ(TM)t all selfish like you? We care about the suffering of human beings unlike you mentally warped sadistic self. Go be a snake.

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[registrations_suck]

Yeah? Are you actually going to DO anything about it?

I mean, something meaningful and useful that actually solves the problem in some way, not just whine about it.

What did you do about it yesterday?
What will you do about it today?
What will you do about it tomorrow?

No. I didn't think so.

It already does

[esperto]

This is already in effect, I'm in china and last week bought a SIM card from China Mobile and had to get a scan of my face, including a blink test (to guarantee it was not a photo).

I didn't like it, but will be here for a short time and being without a mobile connection here is like being without a leg or something.

But this definitely shows how the government is in a ever tightening grip mode here.

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[registrations_suck]

Yeah...this is why I tell my wife "no" with respect to our vacations. I don't want to go to China. I don't want to support their economy any more than I already do through buying stuff made there.

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[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm just impressed with their technology, for obvious racist reasons.

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[Swave An deBwoner]

I searched and couldn't find any mention of this being required in another country. (Countries like North Korea don't really count in this exercise though.)

Might you have a link or list of the "many countries" in which this is a normal procedure?

Thanks.

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[LostMyAccount]

I would bet that a fair number of countries are on the path towards making people identify themselves with government ID when buying SIM cards, if they're not already there.

It doesn't seem like it would be a real barrier to someone who wanted to be anonymous. I'm sure that there are people who recruit others to buy SIM cards and hand them over. Two months from now big brother comes knocking, you claim the phone was stolen or something.

It's probably only a matter of time before they just tie your mobile ac

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[havana9]

I think it's different to prove your identity with a document than to build a face recognition database. Telco are really happy to get names and addresses of people to target advertising.
Besides, if one wants a postpaid contract telco want to be absolutely sure to have an address to send the repo man in case.

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[misexistentialist]

The pictures on ID documents have been added to facial recognition databases for years now. China is just closing the loophole of using a forged or stolen ID.

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[SteveAyre]

Identity? Yes
Face recognition? No

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[Build6]

How necessary is a local phone number to you? If you don't actually need it (and as far as I can tell, absolutely everyone in China with a mobile phone can talk to you via WeChat?), then for mobile internet access I actually rely on roaming prepaid cards I brought in from Hong Kong (currently without need for registration, though that could change), which has the advantage of allowing access to Google etc. - mainland Chinese internet prohibits connections to Google unless you jump through the hoops with VP

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[The Snazster]

Place is turning into a dystopian human hive with Big Brother clamping down harder and harder with every bit of new technology that should instead be making things better.

Used to feel badly for them about the effects of the disastrous demographic implosion they are on the cusp of reaching. Now I think it may be a blessing for everyone who opposes this kind of automated subjugation as it should seriously impede their ability to implement (and spread) it.

don't forget...

[AndyKron]

Let's not forget all the US companies that play along with this fucked up regime.

Pre Crime is next.

[SlashDotCanSuckMy777]

Save us Tom Cruise!

Oh fuck. He believes in Aliens a sci fi writer made up.

Kind of redundant?

[r2kordmaa]

All that really matters is who pays the phone bill and as that can only happen through banks, identification there is already ironclad regardless so it's not like any phone user is anonymous. So this is just typical Chinese bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy.

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[AHuxley]

People can report other people with the Communist smartphone.
So the points and rewards go to the correct person.

First!

[kaatochacha]

I just wanted to be the first one saying "But the US did [insert something unrelated here], so go China!"

Pirate cell towers?

[John Guilt]

There are people with a lot of money in China, and a big push for cellular tech, so of it may end up 'lost'---say, towers spoofing a random tower, and users identified as random other users. I don't know this domain well, so maybe those are impossible or just worn't work, and perhaps there are other, better ways.

a workaround?

[Raymond Berry]

Maybe they could alter the face pic to resemble Winnie the Pooh? That might get popular.