China Bans Compulsory Facial Recognition and Its Use in Private Spaces Like Hotel Rooms (theregister.com) 27
China's Cyberspace Administration and Ministry of Public Security have outlawed the use of facial recognition without consent. From a report: The two orgs last Friday published new rules on facial recognition and an explainer that spell out how orgs that want to use facial recognition must first conduct a "personal information protection impact assessment" that considers whether using the tech is necessary, impacts on individuals' privacy, and risks of data leakage. Organizations that decide to use facial recognition must data encrypt biometric data, and audit the information security techniques and practices they use to protect facial scans. Chinese that go through that process and decide they want to use facial recognition can only do so after securing individuals' consent. The rules also ban the use of facial recognition equipment in public places such as hotel rooms, public bathrooms, public dressing rooms, and public toilets. The measures don't apply to researchers or to what machine translation of the rules describes as "algorithm training activities" -- suggesting images of citizens' faces are fair game when used to train AI models.
It goes without saying that ... (Score:3, Insightful)
... if Xi wants to use it, he can and he will, and that it's likely he's been using it for some time now.
Re:It goes without saying that ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It goes without saying that ... (Score:5, Informative)
That's normally how governments work, yes. Do you think that the CIA operates under the same rules as a hotel?
What really undermines the usual narrative here is that if the CCP did actually want to build an all encompassing panopticon, they would simply allow facial recognition on the condition that they get access to the data. Turns out it's not North Korea though.
It's actually a pretty interesting debate if you can look at the facts. For example, China does use cameras on roads that photograph the face of the driver as vehicles pass. Cue the angry rants about oppression, but actually the UK does too. We have them both for speed enforcement, and so that the police can maintain a database of vehicle movements. They don't all capture the driver's face, but some do.
The real story here is that it could have a huge impact on Chinese companies that supply facial recognition software. Their domestic market has been dramatically curtailed. More generally, the CCP has clearly signalled the citizen's privacy is important and to be respected. They actually seem to be modelling their privacy rules after the EU's GDPR. And of course, GDPR exempts government security services and the police from most of the requirements.
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Indeed, it's a very interesting development. It remains to be seen how it will be enforced, but it's an interesting step in the direction of more care for privacy. That's pretty new for China.
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China really is for a lot of interesting developments in it's next 20ish years. The growth rate is slowing, companies are starting the leave but domestic companies are growing still, the populace has been growing in wealth and has a lot more access to consumer goods and luxury items and through that they are getting more and more outside culture and starting to get a bit more demanding.
The CCP seems a bit waffling on whether to try and keep temperaments repressed or as we see here actually have to give in
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not exactly,
It's more like a mobster rubbing out the competition, because they want to be the only game in town.
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I don't know if anyone here uses cameras that bad, but even before we had computer face recognition, the police used "super recognizers", people who had an unusual ability to pick out faces in a crowd.
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Governments never tolerate competition.
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... if Xi wants to use it, he can and he will, and that it's likely he's been using it for some time now.
The Chinese government also follows the law. Of course, it also reserves the right to unilaterally grant consent if it sees fit.
consent (Score:2)
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Reducing private power - increasing government (Score:1, Interesting)
Just like the GDPR in Europe - this will primarily be something that limits private actors, not the government.
The government can process private information by simply making a law about something, like giving a task to a ministry. GDPR article 6 - "processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject;"
The hurdle is incredibly much higher for private companies.
Looks like China is going down the same route. Here comes daddy Government to watch over you and "protec
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So protection of privacy is a bad thing?
Colour me confused, but governments everywhere can make laws on pretty much anything they like. How does that invalidate a move towards more privacy in China?
Americans. You always mistrust your government, even when it makes no sense, except when you have the biggest reasons to do so.
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So you failed to understand either my comment or the implications of increasing government control?
There isn't any overall move towards privacy in China. In fact, China is steadily increasing government surveillance to the point of most of your life being scored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
As pointed out, limiting private sector power helps the government get away with even more control and surveillance. This is a simple concept that should not have been misunderstood.
If you want to find the people wh
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That is in fact how governments work, the government being democratically elected can make laws and do things private citizens and businesses cannot. Somebody has to have a monopoly on force, for you know, functioning of civilization. These laws are constrained by a constitution or other foundational document of which you know, not every country actually uses the US Constitution for that, just one of them.
Here comes daddy Government to watch over you and "protect" you from your enemies trying to take advantage of you in the private sector.
Yes! That's one of it's jobs!
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That is in fact how governments work, the government being democratically elected can make laws and do things private citizens and businesses cannot. Somebody has to have a monopoly on force, for you know, functioning of civilization. These laws are constrained by a constitution or other foundational document of which you know, not every country actually uses the US Constitution for that, just one of them.
Yes, increasing government surveillance is simply a natural fact of life, what governments do by definition.
Nothing to really care about, nothing to ask questions about - why would you when it's a given, something that can't really be changed?
If you react negatively to surveillance by governments, then you are simply trying to combat the very concept of governments, and how does that make sense?
Better to spend your time caring about other things, than an immutable law of nature that you can't affect either
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Yes, increasing government surveillance is simply a natural fact of life
If it's related to what the public wants then yes. In the USA though we have the 4th amendment so any laws have to work around that.
It can be changed, we have these things called "elections" where we vote for our representatives that make these laws.
If you react negatively to surveillance by governments, then you are simply trying to combat the very concept of governments, and how does that make sense?
This is a strawman, you said the government can pass a law to access "private information" (whatever that means in terms of our relationship to the government) as if to imply that shouldn't be allowed. I simply stated that depending on the law, like the GDPR,
Ban scanning photo IDs next. (Score:5, Insightful)
Europe could learn from this. The next thing that should be banned is scanning photo IDs. A photo ID should only be valid if presented in person, right next to the matching face. FBI-style ID wave, if you need a visual. Do that, and most scams and identity thefts will go away.
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Europe could learn from this. The next thing that should be banned is scanning photo IDs. A photo ID should only be valid if presented in person, right next to the matching face. FBI-style ID wave, if you need a visual. Do that, and most scams and identity thefts will go away.
Private scanning of photo ID should be banned... One thing that's made my life better over the last decade is my biometric passport which has made long immigration lines a thing of the past in Europe, sadly long queues are still a thing if I visit 3rd world countries like the US.. FFS, even Colombia has a biometric passport queue (granted only on the outgoing queue at Bogota). USians with a biometric passport can enter the UK without ever speaking to anyone, just like Canadians, Australians or Brits. It's f
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