Chinese Break New Ground in Surveillance

The Chinese have broken new ground with the use of facial recognition.  They use it everywhere, in expensive stores for purchases, in train stations to find terrorists, and on the streets of any city to find people traveling on someone else’s travel papers.  So clever, these people.

I wonder if anyone cares that China has the most intrusive society of any country in the world.  They control movement of their people inside the country, they censor bad thoughts that people write to one another, and they limit reproduction of human beings.  No other country does that, and certainly no other country does it as well.  

We can say that it is their country and they can do what they want, but that is like saying it is OK to carry out the little social experiment in North Korea that makes robots out of people.  They do what they are told to do and don’t question the authorities.  China calls that harmony.

So, it is OK to human beings that China equips its police with Google-glass like camera glasses which look at people’s faces as they pass by, make a purchase, or buy a train ticket?  It is easy to find a wanted person because those faces will match up - maybe a little slower than they would like - and let someone know that person is in the area.  Think about how nice it would be to be able to pick out an illegal alien in the crowd at the Kennedy Center, or getting on the Metro.  Wanted felons would have no chance against that kind of surveillance.  Violating a restraining order?  We got you.  That would be nice.  Buying a gun when you shouldn’t be?  That too.

What we forget is the database that allows all of those things to happen.  A database of every face of every person in the country, subdivided and replicated so it can be accessed quickly at the local level.  So those who are wanted for any reason, or write the wrong kinds of stories, can be taken into custody and questioned, we take those pictures and keep them.  The iPhone X fits perfectly into that model, even if it is just one piece.  Is China’s model how we want to live?  For that matter, is it how they want to live?