China is testing "emotion recognition" systems in Xinjiang

[nanoguy]

In brief: China is currently testing surveillance systems that are supposedly able to detect people's emotions. While it shouldn't come as a surprise, the underlying technology isn't working as well as advertised, but the Chinese government has already started rolling it out in western China.

China's idea of smart cities apparently also includes emotion recognition hardware installed in public spaces. Recently, a surveillance tech expo held in Shenzhen was filled with all manner of surveillance systems the country wants to install in airports, subways, and shopping malls to help identify criminals. Attending companies include Baidu and Huawei, the latter of which is close to getting a reprieve from the trade ban.

All of this is part of a broad push for more advanced surveillance in the region, as China is looking to eventually be able to predict crimes using machine learning. The idea might sound like something out of Minority Report, but several companies like Hikvision, Sensetime, and iFlytek have already jumped in on the opportunity, and as a result were promptly added to the US trade blacklist.

According to a report from the Financial Times, the emotion recognition tech is currently being deployed in Xinjiang, a region known to be the home of over one million Muslims that are being held in internment camps. This appears to be the country's favorite spot for testing surveillance systems, especially facial scanning tech.

Li Xiaoyu, a policing expert from Xinjiang, noted that "using video footage, emotion recognition can rapidly identify criminal suspects by analyzing their mental state… to prevent illegal acts including terrorism and smuggling."

However, security experts cast doubt on technology's ability to accurately detect human emotions. ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley told Axios "the science on emotion recognition is pretty bogus," and some studies show that linking emotional states to facial expressions properly "regardless of context, person, and culture" is difficult, if not impossible.

The good news -- especially for Chinese citizens -- is the new surveillance tech isn't ready for high scale production and has been described as a "gimmick." And while companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon have their own facial recognition systems in the works, they openly admit to their rudimentary capabilities.

Huawei has been accused of producing communications infrastructure that is prone to exploits to serve Chinese espionage efforts, but the company has repeatedly denied involvement with any particular government. On the other hand, to see the company pitching its 5G and AI tech at a surveillance tech expo is likely to turn up the paranoia knobs of critics and regulators to eleven.

This isn't the first time in recent history that China has made a controversial move to increase citizen surveillance. The country has also been testing gait-recognition and even gone as far as building a social credit system and an app that maps "deadbeat debtors," so they can be publicly shamed by others.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/82611-china-testing-emotion-recognition-systems-xinjiang.html

 

[psycros]

Huawei wasn't "accused" of building in backdoors - they were caught doing it multiple times and either settled to avoid charges or simply pulled out of the market. As for testing the dystopian facerec systems in Muslim internment camps, well...it makes sense because that's where nearly all of China's terrorism originates. The Chinese Muslim minorities were always second-class citizens to a certain degree but when radicalization started creeping in during the 90's the Chinese government didn't *****foot around. Yes, its entirely likely this contributed to a cycle of victimization and radicalization but we know what happens if fundamentalist Islam is left to fester unchecked. This is unfortunate because tolerance and outreach probably would have actually worked in China where Muslims KNOW the authorities will act immediately if insurgency is suspected. If you use diplomacy from a position of strength most people will respect you and know better than to try to pull anything. And if they still try to take advantage of your overtures then you obliterate them. As for the "behavior index" monstrosity that China is instituting, its another case of an interesting idea that employs exactly the wrong approach. You should reward people who always pay their bills on time, don't break the law and act generally like responsible human beings. Punishing those who don't, however, accomplishes little. A deadbeat or addict will only stop being those things if they want to change. Over 90% of all forced detoxing attempts fail and, like communism, debt forgiveness fails every time its tried. You have to give people reasons to want to improve.

 

[dangh]

Huawei wasn't "accused" of building in backdoors - they were caught doing it multiple times and either settled to avoid charges or simply pulled out of the market.

Any reliable source? Which is not a Vodafone telnet service?

 

[Uncle Al]

Any reliable source? Which is not a Vodafone telnet service?

A number of intelligence services reports are out there ... I think the one from NSA was the most damning ....

 

[Danny101]

Yes, they're feeling you.

 

[Godel]

Precrime.

 

[p51d007]

You can bet the deep state socialist in America & other nations, that want a "one world government" are just jumping at the chance to have that in their countries, along with their "social media credit score".

 

[Gars]

Huawei wasn't "accused" of building in backdoors - they were caught doing it multiple times and either settled to avoid charges or simply pulled out of the market. As for testing the dystopian facerec systems in Muslim internment camps, well...it makes sense because that's where nearly all of China's terrorism originates. The Chinese Muslim minorities were always second-class citizens to a certain degree but when radicalization started creeping in during the 90's the Chinese government didn't *****foot around. Yes, its entirely likely this contributed to a cycle of victimization and radicalization but we know what happens if fundamentalist Islam is left to fester unchecked. This is unfortunate because tolerance and outreach probably would have actually worked in China where Muslims KNOW the authorities will act immediately if insurgency is suspected. If you use diplomacy from a position of strength most people will respect you and know better than to try to pull anything. And if they still try to take advantage of your overtures then you obliterate them. As for the "behavior index" monstrosity that China is instituting, its another case of an interesting idea that employs exactly the wrong approach. You should reward people who always pay their bills on time, don't break the law and act generally like responsible human beings. Punishing those who don't, however, accomplishes little. A deadbeat or addict will only stop being those things if they want to change. Over 90% of all forced detoxing attempts fail and, like communism, debt forgiveness fails every time its tried. You have to give people reasons to want to improve.

this sounds like E Norton is ling
why its sounds like that, idk

 

[treetops]

You can bet the deep state socialist in America & other nations, that want a "one world government" are just jumping at the chance to have that in their countries, along with their "social media credit score".

Why would super rich and powerful people want to spread out their wealth, that makes no sense.

 

[Capaill]

Criminal = what? Undesirable? Abnormal? Who decides what a criminal is? This is scary tech. I'm reminded of the movie Equilibrium where emotions were banned and suppressed. That's worth a watch if you like action movies.

You should reward people who always pay their bills on time, don't break the law and act generally like responsible human beings.

They are rewarded. They're rewarded by not being sent to an internment camp. There's just no satisfying some people

 

[gollum21]

A deadbeat or addict will only stop being those things if they want to change. Over 90% of all forced detoxing attempts fail and, like communism, debt forgiveness fails every time its tried. You have to give people reasons to want to improve.

Not all of the people the Chinese government labels as "deadbeats" are even ill either. Some of these people happen to be in different parts of the market (like coal) that fell apart around them forcing them to fall into debt fast. I can't even imagine how this system treats people who start failed businesses, since most do fail.

Once you're on that list, you're cut off from a lot of... "privilages" and services. Making it even harder to climb back out of debt. Or their own illnesses like you mentioned.

 

[Yynxs]

See opinion article on Microsoft:

https://www.techspot.com/news/82631...ana-pivot-highlights-evolving-role-voice.html

"...Remember that one of Microsoft’s biggest efforts over the last several years has been the development of what it calls the Microsoft Graph—a collection of data about an individual user’s productivity habits, documents, device usage patterns and virtually every aspect of his/her working life that can be gathered. ..."