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PRC’s surveillance stirring rare public dissent

Top Stories | Feb 24, 2020:

Tom Abke

Chinese citizens growing weary of constant surveillance are publicly airing their grievances with the government’s widespread use of facial recognition technology.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) uses facial recognition technology at airport check-ins, on smartphones and social media, and at points of sale. It also uses the technology to measure attendance and detect cheating in classrooms and even in public toilets to prevent toilet-paper theft, according to Abacus, a Hong Kong technology news service.

Government use of facial recognition technology is causing the greatest stir. Coupled with the more than 300 million public surveillance cameras installed across China, security forces use the technology to monitor the movements and activities of every citizen.

Protesters in Hong Kong in August 2019 were seen pulling down “smart lampposts,” which housed surveillance cameras linked to facial recognition systems, Forbes magazine reported. By October 2019, rare public dissent started to emerge.

“Imagine all your personal data, including what network you usually visit, what news and videos you watch, what you buy, who you chat with on social media, what you talk about, what kind of dislikes, etc., and now add to this your personal biometric data,” wrote Tsinghua University law professor Lao Dongyan. “It’s all under the control of a huge organization. We must know that in our society, any personal data, as long as it is controlled by enterprises or other institutions, is also controlled by the government.”

Lao boldly published her views in an October 31, 2019, essay in response to facial recognition surveillance cameras being installed at Beijing subway stations. She contrasted the lack of public consent for their installation to a time when subway ticket prices were raised, but not before the public had been consulted. She also contended the cameras violate the PRC’s Constitution, which prohibits unauthorized searches of citizens’ bodies. (Pictured: Facial recognition cameras capture the images of visitors to the 14th China International Exhibition on Public Safety and Security in Beijing.)

Another law professor, Guo Bing of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University in eastern China, took his fight against facial recognition technology a step further. On November 8, 2019, BBC reported that Guo was suing a safari park for requiring visitors to submit to facial recognition screening before being allowed to enter the park and thereby collecting visitors’ individual characteristics without their consent. After Guo filed his lawsuit, the park offered visitors the choice of fingerprint scanning as an alternative.

The public protests by Lao and Guo were foreshadowed by earlier public complaints in 2018. One came from a Zhejiang school over fears that students’ privacy was violated by a recently installed facial recognition system, Abacus reported. Former Beijing-based magazine editor Hongshen Kwai voiced another, telling The Economist magazine: “Everyone is under close surveillance in their daily lives. You can’t do anything the government dislikes. If this is the way it is, it’s like entering a state of totalitarianism.”

By the end of November 2019, state media had recognized the revolt and reported that a group of 20 Chinese technology companies had begun formulating a national standard for facial recognition technology. Speaking for the group, artificial intelligence company SenseTime acknowledged that the wide application of facial recognition technology “has led to a series of issues including identity theft and security risks due to a lack of regulation in the collection, storage and processing of facial data.”

Tom Abke is a FORUM contributor reporting from Singapore.

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