Name: China: facial recognition and state control | The Economist
Uploaded: 2018-12-16T11:14:57.000Z
Duration: 5 min 42 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

...increasing connectivity across the world.

That's the great promise offered by data-driven technology.

But in China, it also promises greater state control and abuse of power.

This is the next groundbreaking development  in data driven technology:...

And in China you can already withdraw cash,...

...and pay for goods,  using just your face.

The country is the world's leader  in the use of this emerging technology.

And China's many  artificial intelligence startups...

...are determined to keep it that way in the future.

...Artificial Intelligence research and innovation,...

...in the hope of creating  a safer, faster, and healthier world.

YITU is creating the building blocks  for a smart city of the future,...

...where facial recognition  is part of everyday life.

This could even extend to detecting  what people are thinking.

Facial recognition:  they can read people's emotions,...

...and we are actually now working  on these innovative demonstrations and technology.

But the Chinese government has plans  to use this new biometric technology...

The country has ambitious plans  to develop a vast national surveillance system,...

It'll be used to monitor  its 1.4 billion citizens...

With the capability of tracking everything,  from their emotions...   to their sexuality.

The primary means  will be a vast network of CCTV cameras.

...and an estimated 400 million new ones  will be installed over the next three years.

The authorities insist this program  will allow them to improve security for citizens,...

...and if you have nothing to hide,  you have nothing to fear.

Hongshen Kwai is a former magazine editor.

He feels like he's under constant surveillance.

Already the authorities are using facial recognition  to name and shame citizens.

Even for minor offenses,  like jaywalking.

...they're using the technology  to prevent people...

...stealing rolls of loo paper  from public toilets.

And across China, police officers  are now trialing sunglasses and body cameras,...

...loaded with facial and gesture recognition technology.

It's helping them to identify wanted suspects in real-time.

...is that, as the technology develops,  so too does the capacity for it to be abused.

Some of those most at risk  in this hyper-surveillance future...

In Xinjiang province, the Chinese government  is wary of the separatist threat...

...posed by the Muslim Uyghur population.

...are being detained indefinitely  in secretive internment camps,...

...where some are being subject to abuse.

It's been called the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.

The authorities are using facial recognition cameras  to scan people's faces before they enter markets.

The system alerts authorities if targeted individuals stray 300 meters beyond their home.

In the future, the government plans  to aggregate even more data,...

...and build a predictive policing programme...

...that imposes even tighter controls here.

...China will keep finding new ways  to violate the human rights of its citizens.

What's already happening in Xinjiang  is a warning the rest of the world must heed.