Probably everyone has heard about 1984 by George Orwell, a grim dystopian novel about brain washing and surveillance at every step. Well, I have bad news for all of us, we just got a step closer to this reality. Recently, China has been developing their own AI program, and they are reaping the benefits.
The Chinese company Xloong has probably changed the history of police forever by developing glasses, but not so normal glasses, oh no! Smart glasses that recognize faces from a police database. In 100 miliseconds they compare your face with 10.000 others! Already during the testing phase it is clearly visible that this small gadget surpasses intelligent CCTV with the same features. In a short period of time, 26 people were identified as users of fake IDs, thus preventing them from traveling by train (Well, Chinese travel laws are so weird that I could make another article about them, so let’s not get into them right now). Also several other people were identified by their misdeeds, ranging from traffic infringements to human trafficking, but we don’t know the exact number, nonetheless it is a great achievement!
At the same time, Chinese government is building a system that will recognize any Chinese citizen in just 3 seconds, and (probably) will be compatible with glasses designed by Xloong, providing ability to identify anyone at any given moment. Recent use of this advanced gadget to prevent protesters from entering a designated area strongly suggests that this is a milestone of early 21st century in terms of surveillance and infringing on people’s privacy.
Sources:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-police-facial-recognition-sunglasses-security-smart-tech-travellers-criminals-a8206491.html
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17110636/china-police-facial-recognition-sunglasses-surveillance
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Chinese-startup-makes-facial-recognition-glasses-for-police