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Daily life in China is gated by security technology, from the body scanners and X-ray machines at every urban metro station to the demand for ID numbers on social media platforms so that dangerous speech can be traced and punished. Technologies once seen as potentially empowering the public have become tools for an increasingly dictatorial government—tools that Beijing is now determined to sell to the developing world.
In 2015, the Chinese government launched its Made in China 2025 plan to dominate cutting-edge technological industries. This was followed up last year for plans for the country to be a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence by 2030 and to build a $150 billion industry. The developing world is a big part of these ambitions. But China doesn’t just want to dominate these markets. It wants to use developing countries as a laboratory to improve its own surveillance technologies.
[...] The latest is CloudWalk Technology, a Guangzhou-based start-up that has signed a deal with the Zimbabwean government to provide a mass facial recognition program. The agreement is currently on hold until Zimbabwe’s elections on July 30. But if it goes through, it will enable Zimbabwe, a country with a bleak record on human rights, to replicate parts of the surveillance infrastructure that have made freedoms so limited in China. And by gaining access to a population with a racial mix far different from China’s, CloudWalk will be better able to train racial biases out of its facial recognition systems—a problem that has beleaguered facial recognition companies around the world and which could give China a vital edge.
[...] The deal between CloudWalk and the Zimbabwean government will not cover just CCTV cameras. According to a report in the Chinese state newspaper Science and Technology Daily, smart financial systems, airport, railway, and bus station security, and a national facial database will all be part of the project.
Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/24/beijings-big-brother-tech-needs-african-faces/
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @08:06PM (4 children)
The US does a lot of the same stuff although we hide it way better. Your social security number is very much like the social credit score and we have security cameras everywhere doing facial and license plate tracking. Beyond that, every cell phone is tracked along with some serious violations of the 4th amendment. The full body scanners seem mostly reserved for airports, but I'm sure quite a few government buildings use them as well.
All that being said, the attempts to keep these methods invisible to the average citizen are quite important. They prevent the wider abuse of such powers by discouraging highly visible applications, part of why many court cases get dropped rather than expose how they got the cell phone data.
Now the grim part, we are one catastrophe and/or authoritarian douche away from making these systems 100% public knowledge, and then we will see the nasty shit REALLY pick up.
Maybe it is time the US really started walking the walk with regards to freedom?
(Score: 1) by gtomorrow on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:42AM
"Now the grim part," he says!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:28PM (2 children)
The whataboutism is strong with this one.
It's interesting how this peculiar concern about the actions of the US come up whenever China gets criticized.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:11PM (1 child)
There wouldn't be so much "whataboutism" if the stench of hypocrisy and propaganda wasn't so foul.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 27 2018, @01:30AM