The Chinese government continues its Orwellian practices as it announced that citizens will have to use facial recognition technology to use the internet (which is already highly fire-walled.)
That's all a part of China’s social credit system that will take effect on December 1st, 2019. After the law is in effect, Chinese who want to have internet installed at their homes or on their smartphones will have to undergo a facial recognition process by Chinese authorities to prove their identities, according to this new regulation.
That's important because the Chinese government will now use the internet to rate citizens based on their daily behavior online.
Chinese citizens have been required to present their ID cards while applying for a landline or the internet since 2015. The new law is put in place in order to verify that the ID belongs to the person applying for services.
This law was published on the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) website and distributed to all Chinese telecom carriers on September 27th, 2019, which includes three demands be met, according to Epoch Times.
"First, all telecom carriers must use facial recognition to test whether an applicant who applies for internet connection is the owner of the ID that they use since December 1st. At the same time, the carriers must test that the ID is genuine and valid.
Second, all telecom carriers must upgrade their service’s terms and conditions and notify all their customers that they are not allowed to transfer or resell their cell phone SIM card to another person by the end of November 2019.
Third, telecom carriers should help their customers to check whether there are a cell phone or landline numbers that don’t belong to them but registered under their names since December 1st. For unidentified numbers, the telecom carries must investigate and close the lines immediately."
That comes on the heels of another Chinese pilot program that allows citizens to pay for subway or train travel using just their facial biometrics according to Activist Post. The new system also compensates elderly Chinese citizens in the city of Shenzhen, China, with a free ride — provided they pay with their face — providing incentives for the use of facial recognition technology.
The country plans to merge its over 170 million security cameras with artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology in order to create a mega-surveillance state. That compounds with China’s “social credit system” that ranks citizens based on their behavior, and rewards or punishes depending on those scores.
According a recent report of U.S.-based market research firm IDC, the country had spent $10.6 billion on video surveillance equipment in 2018. The firm added that China’s spending is believed to reach $20.1 billion in 2023. A massive 64.3% of China’s spending in 2018 was spent solely on surveillance cameras.
China’s cities, classrooms, and even restrooms are already inundated with facial recognition technology. Inside classrooms, facial recognition technology monitors students and then reports their actions to the teachers and parents. The country even requires citizens to scan their faces to use toilet paper in a public bathroom.
If that was not bad enough, Chinese scientists have recently developed an artificial intelligence (AI) enabled 500 megapixel cloud camera, capable of panoramic capture of an entire stadium with the ability to target a single individual in an instant, according to Global Times.
The upgrade to facial recognition technology was developed by Shanghai-based Fudan University and Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Changchun, capital of Northeast China’s Jilin Province.
According to The Mind Unleashed, Fudan University and Changchun Institute of Optics are not the first researchers to advance facial recognition. There's also Shanghai-based YITU Technology that has evolved the facial recognition industry by being able to identify a person within a matter of seconds from a database of people, even if just their partial face is visible, according to CNBC.
The evolution of facial recognition technology is further documented by researchers at the University of Bradford have discovered that “facial recognition technology works even when only half a face is visible,” according to EurekAlert.
China is becoming Orwell’s worst nightmare by advancing its requirement and use of facial recognition technology. Hong Kong activists have started shining laser pointers at facial recognition cameras to disrupt their function. Protesters have also taken additional measures, such as spray painting camera lenses on the street or around government offices, according to Activist Post.
The latest crackdown currently requiring internet users in China to register their faces if they want to use the service is a step towards a dystopian society. The remaining question is, how long until that type of facial ID requirement spreads to the United States and the European Union? We do know that the United States has wanted an “Internet ID Act” for quite some time, as reports Amie Stepanovich, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.
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