Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
China Communications Privacy

Getting a New Mobile Number in China Will Soon Involve a Facial-Recognition Test (qz.com) 35

Posted by msmash from the that's-how-it-begins dept.
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.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

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

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

Comments Filter:

  • 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.

    • Dear leader?

      Oh pooh.

      • 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.

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

    • 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.

  • 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?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
      Nobody cares, the most important thing in the world over in the West is arguing over transgender bathrooms.

    • 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.

      • 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 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by esperto ( 3521901 ) on Monday October 07, 2019 @08:02PM (#59281384)
    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.

    • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Build6 ( 164888 )

      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

    • 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... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Monday October 07, 2019 @09:29PM (#59281658)
    Let's not forget all the US companies that play along with this fucked up regime.

  • Save us Tom Cruise!

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

  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      People can report other people with the Communist smartphone.
      So the points and rewards go to the correct person.

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

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

Slashdot Top Deals

The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the `social sciences' is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford

Close