China is known for their most sophisticated surveillance systems in the world. Government uses a combination of facial recognition, biometrics, AI in order to monitor all the citizens and control them.
Face recognition software is already present in our lives, and is mainly used to unlock phones, authenticate users in mobile apps, or locate people in videos or photos.
Chinese companies are the world leaders in exporting face recognition systems. They already have 201 export deals of these biometric systems. China is also a leader in exporting AI technology in general, with 250 AI deals. These solutions can be used for various purposes: security, surveillance, identity verification.
China has huge investments in AI and biometric technologies. The government is spending billions of dollars on AI research and development. It focuses on creating new, innovative face recognition software.
The country’s advantage is also that it has a huge amount of data available for the analysis. With over 1.4 billion people, with vast access to the internet, and huge surveillance system, China has a great source to train and test their solutions. This allowed them to make very reliable face recognition algorithms, making them a leader in this field.
Here you can watch how the system works:
With that big dominance comes also a number of challenges when trying to expand to other markets. There is a huge concern about privacy, ethics, and protection of using biometrics for control and surveillance. The government actively promotes the use of biometrics as it improves national security and public safety, but also provides more efficient services to citizens.
Chinese surveillance system is a powerful tool with potential to enhance public safety. However, we should be mindful about the potential risks of using such systems, and we have to make sure that it is really used to protect human rights. Chinese government has to take steps to increase transparency of their solutions and ensure people that they use it responsibly.
Resources:
https://www.wired.com/story/china-is-the-worlds-biggest-face-recognition-dealer/
Those biometric systems are in fact very useful. However, I would feel uncomfortable living in society that is surveillanced at all times. I understand the benefits of this phenomenon but on the other hand it takes away part of freedom from people.
China is undeniably a world leader in AI technology because of its vast potential for gathering data. The policy enforces on people to be constant providers of such data, which is beneficial for the Chinese government but not necessarily for citizens. Owing to this, Chine gain a huge competitive advantage over the rest of the world which can be their ace in the hole in deals with the western world.
Though I understand the underlying purpose of surveillance systems and their huge benefits on many aspects of security and catching criminals, I wonder what ethical issues will arise once people realize the true potential of what AI-driven cameras holds. Personally, If I were to put myself under the Chinese government’s position, these surveillance systems will only be implanted in rather more crowded areas/places with high crime rates.
I would love to hear opinions from different viewpoints!