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From December 1st, when Chinese authorities signed a new mobile phone number, they made it mandatory to collect customer face authentication data on the part of the service provider.
The new regulations were announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in late September. Chinese authorities say it is to protect the legitimate rights and interests of citizens in cyberspace. Since 2013, the Chinese government has used two types of identification cards and phone numbers when searching for new phone numbers, but in this regulation, scanned face authentication data is used to identify customers.
These measures seem to reduce Internet fraud, but in reality, it is difficult to use smartphones anonymously, and it is speculated that the Chinese government will be more likely to crack down on dissent. The Chinese government has been tightening regulations for identity verification on the Internet over the years. In 2017, for example, when posting content online, they were required to verify their identity.
This new regulation is also believed to be the real purpose of strengthening an anonymous ban on the Internet and being able to identify mobile phone users. In the background, there is a reality that most Internet users in China access the web with their smartphones.
On the other hand, there are also concerns that personal information may be threatened. China is also known as a surveillance state. As of the end of 2017, more than 170 million CCTVs were deployed nationwide, and there is a forecast that it will increase to more than 400 million by 2020.
Such a surveillance system is appealing to the Chinese authorities that it is effective in catching criminals and evacuees through facial recognition AI. In 2018, it was announced that one wanted person was identified and arrested at a concert hall with 60,000 participants. In addition, there are reports that a facial recognition system is being piloted for minorities in the Uighur Autonomous Region in Xinjiang, China, and authorities warn if they are more than 300m away from the designated area.
The use of facial recognition technology by public institutions is also widely spread in the United States, and a survey conducted by Georgiatown University in 2016 reported that most of the adult men in the United States were already registered in the police photo database.
After this incident, the San Francisco Supervisory Commission in the United States deliberated and passed an ordinance banning the use of AI facial recognition technology by city authorities in May. There is a possibility that the movement to regulate facial recognition technology will accelerate as the alarm bell for nationalization of surveillance appears in the United States as well. Related information can be found here .
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