China Approves Facial Recognition for Surveillance 78
user24 writes "Several sources are reporting that China has approved a facial recognition system to be used for ID purposes in surveillance and security. From the article: 'The system, approved by the Ministry of Public Security, is expected to be used at airports, customs entrances, banks, post offices, residential areas and other public places in the near future [...] 'It has a superior advantage compared with fingerprint identification because the country doesn't have a fingerprint database for the general public,' [...] However, the country's ID cards do feature the person's photograph, which could facilitate the creation of a facial database, said Su Guangda.'"
Double standard idealism (Score:5, Insightful)
When a western country does it, it's for homeland security.
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:4, Insightful)
Cf. the differences between
terrorist and freedom fighter
heretic and prophet
gangster and king
treasonous rebel and founding father
"When I say a word, it means what I want it to mean." -- Humpty Dumpty
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:2)
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:2, Interesting)
Most people don't care about individual freedom, though. The government only ever fails individuals, not any sizable portion of the population. Unfortunately, most people don't really give a shit about something that they perceive can't happen to them.
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:2)
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:1)
jaywalking is perfectly legal here in the uk (for now)
the rest of what you say is correct tho & its even worse than you think. in around 10 years the government will be able to track every movement of every person in the country (at least in cities & towns) & keep a database of those movements for at least 2 years.
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:1)
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:2)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/46269
Yeah, these camera's are notoriously reliable, right?
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:1)
well, its hardly rusty or very old, and it was totally different types of camera i was referring to.
but it is a very valid point, im sure most of these automated surveillance technologies have a significant error rate, when applied to a population of millions. Its only a matter of time until someone is convicted of a crime they didnt commit & their alibi doesnt matter, because the machine says they were commiting a crime.
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:2)
In the interest of public education, I would like to point out that this is an erroneous myth:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.htm [snopes.com]
Interestingly, humans are probably more susceptible to this sort of treatment since our bodies will busily try to adjust to the increasing temperature, leading us to think that it's something we can handle. When the frog notices the increased temp, on the other hand, his only strategy f
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:1)
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:1)
It's that "totalitarianism" phase of Marxism - the guys who start the revolution just can't quite seem to get through that phase in order to start the inevitable arrival at Utopia. Given enough historical trends, one might start to suspect that the "leaders" of the Revolution(tm) never really intended to get past the totalitarian phase.
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, this is wrong on so many levels. Communism fails because people do it right -- not despite of it. Planned economies cannot work because those doing the planning are less invested in the success of their plan than those performing the work. And those performing the work naturally dull their ingenuity because they feel disenfranchised from power. The ingenuity is not gone completely, but it is dulled.
Plus innovation comes out of planning -- a process that more often than not involves weighing the po
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:1)
i still dont see it
i live in the country with the highest number of cctv cameras per capita, in the world, it is 'democratic'. we were never asked to vote on if we wanted to be tracked or not. it doesnt matter which party we vote for, they both have very similar policies. compulsory id cards are about to be forced on us, again, no possible democratic way to stop them. number plate recognition systems are already in use on our streets to track the movement of cars. facial recognition has been trialed &
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:2)
If you are not willing to do these sorts of things, then you really dont care all that much do you? If you dont have
What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Liar. They couldn't keep it up in Crawford, Texass. Several laws were passed to prevent this. And for damn sure no protestors are allowed to camp out infront of thwe whitehouse! Hell, they took down
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:2)
The country he was talking about was not one of those countries. Unless your name is Brian Haw, you can be arrested for protesting within a mile of the Houses of Parliament. Downing Street falls within that catchment area too.
Brian Haw gets arrested too, but they have to find other bogus excuses to arrest him.
Just so you know.
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:1)
until I saw you posted as AC. ACs aren't real people
Re:Double standard idealism (Score:2)
When Microsoft does it
When RMS does it, it's for the good of the world.
The point here is that technology is rarely if ever inherently wrong; it just depends on who uses it and what they use it for.
Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's say that they deploy this thing in only one city. It sees, shall we say, ten million faces a day.
Each face has to be compared against the database. The database of the Chinese population, because you can't assume that everyone stays in the same city all the time. One point two billion people.
I make that twelve quadrillion comparisons that will have to be made each day by this system. This thing's going to have to make the Earth Simulator look like an abacus...
Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:2)
Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, the argument that it won't be feasible on a technical level/too expensive/too complicated is a bit naive, too. The same thing could said about China's "great firewall" (and probably has been said about it prior to its
Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:2)
I imagine they could play a game of Guess Who with the database... first of all split it to Men or Women, then narrow it down to People With Thick Eyebrows, People With Big Ears, People With Beards, etc. But you're looking a
Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:2)
The systems are plagued with false negatives...I think this computer will find all Chinese people look different.
Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:2)
The article implied that they wouldn't be doing this (that is--all 1.3 billion pictures would be loaded in the database, and the computer would be matching each face to each picture many times per day.)
We don't have that type of technology. We don't have anything *near* that type of technology (I've understood facial recognition to be accurate at fewer than 10,000 photographs. Anything above that and it just loses it.)
The article implies that they will only
Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:1)
Exactly. Most systems lose any value at all at far below 10,000 faces, though.
Facial recognition is largely in the "snake oil" stage, where salespeople dummy up ridiculous best-case tests against a tiny database, and then declare the technology a success. Put a billion Chinese in a database
Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:2)
Depending on what you mean by 'well'. How many times have you passed right by someone you know, and how many times have you seen someone you think you recognize in a crowd, but it turned out to be someone just looking like them?
Even if the human brain is tremendously good at facial recognition, the problem simply grows too fast when both population and match-set grows. Personally I suspect there simply is such a large overlap
Re:Hmm. Anyone want to do the sums on this? (Score:2)
There's no need to compare against the entire population - they only need to compare against the people they're looking for - christians, reporters, students, writers, etc.
Amazing Technology (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Amazing Technology (Score:2)
Re:Amazing Technology (Score:2)
Hmm - question, poser, query... (Score:4, Funny)
To clarify, (Score:2)
Re:To clarify, (Score:2)
Re:To clarify, (Score:2)
Go to Google Earth some time and check out China. You'll be surprised how much is left.
Re:To clarify, (Score:2)
Not necessarily evil (Score:2)
There have been cameras pointing at you at customs when flying between the UK and Ireland for years, and I've noticed them at more and more customs posts recently in Europe.
It wouldn't surprise me if the same thing is true in the USA.
Re:Not necessarily evil (Score:1)
of course, it has to be fine if it happens here, we wouldnt want china to lag behind the west in the total surveillance of their entire population.
maybe they could share info with the west too, incase any chinese dissidents try to hide in europe or north america. we could also persecute people that disagree with 'western values', should they be silly enough to try to hide in china.
Golden shield (Score:2)
Lotsa uninformed China bashing on Slashdot these days...
Re:Golden shield (Score:1)
Re:Yea but's it's not going to help much. (Score:2)
Serious test of the algorithms? (Score:1, Funny)
In doubts... (Score:2, Funny)
Power in China misunderstood (Score:1)
This is absolutely falce. The central government in China, while a strong entity in itself, has very little control over what happens in China. China is in fact very locally governed (If this sounds of anarchistic ideas, then you would be correct, Mao was strongly influenced by European anarchist thinkers).
Thus if the central governmen
false even (Score:1)
Re:Power in China misunderstood (Score:2)
Of course, China is hardly unique, but they do have a wee bit of a problem.
Re:Power in China misunderstood (Score:1)
Cats says: (Score:2, Funny)
muhahah
ID card data (Score:1)
I also wonder if my UK driving license photo was scanned by my government for similar purposes.
Additionally, I wonder if I could copyright or trademark my face, or at least facial features such as those that would be used by this type of system.
Finally, I wonder if the systems are really that reliable, given the pretty bad track record that fingerprinting systems have
Re:ID card data (Score:1)
Re:ID card data (Score:1)
sorry, missed your other points.
yes the uk government does make a digital copy of your photo for your driving license, i doubt it is deleted, but it may or may not be much use for facial recognition.
currently facial recognition has high error rates, it is also fooled by wearing a hat, a hood, or growing a beard, among other things. it has been trialed in the uk, although im not sure if its currently in use, as the trials werent very successful. obviously though, the technology will improve & its on
Re:ID card data (Score:2)
Re:ID card data (Score:1)
Why would the government care about whether they should tell their citizens about what they plan on doing with the picture? The citizens had better damn well do what they're told, they don't need any explanation.
Powered by.... (Score:1)
(it's a joke, laugh)
Jaysyn
First time, haha. Second time, ok. Third, not fun. (Score:1)
China copies again ! (Score:2)
Not to be worried... (Score:2, Interesting)
PingYing??? (Score:1)
Excellent! (Score:1)
In other news (Score:1)