References to Big Brother and the TV series Person of Interest are inevitable. For years, we were told technology would eventually reach this point, and all we saw were jokes about paranoia and exaggeration. However, the "Sense" surveillance platform used in China is quite real. 170 million cameras, which will be joined by an additional 450 million units before 2020, are registering and identifying every person who passes in front of their lenses, and the government is not the only one taking advantage of that information.
According to Lin Yuanqing, director of the Deep Learning Institute at Baidu, there is a massive database maintained by the Chinese government. Basically, almost every person over 18 with a modern ID has their faces stored in that database. The simple idea gives chills, but that level of surveillance is not only tolerated, but is becoming part of everyday life. Several companies have already incorporated facial recognition to control building access, withdraw money from ATMs, and even suggest lunches in fast-food restaurants. If you have doubts about that... watch this:
People stopped or moving slowly are marked in yellow. Those moving faster on a bicycle or motorcycle have a pink box. The rest of the vehicles, in blue. Real-time counting. Thousands of images captured per minute. The scene changes to an escalator. "Persons of interest" identified with accuracy above 90 percent, and all the Sense system requires is one or two frames. Some sources suggest that Sense is a "work in progress", and that it still needs time to leave the laboratory, but if it can already do that, imagine the full version.
Thus we reach the great debate: Privacy versus security. Reports that the Chinese government uses this technology to intimidate activists and political dissidents are not new. The plan is to turn the "nothing to hide" fallacy into truth, and step by step, with the convenience of unlocking smartphones and paying for KFC combos, they seem to be succeeding.
