Welcome to the new world. Protestors in China have cleverly found a way to avoid police facial recognition software by pointing an array of lasers at the police. China has perhaps the most extensive facial recognition of any country. SenseNets, a facial recognitional company in Shenzhen, experienced an internal leak in early 2019. The database contained detailed information on over 2.5 million people, including their addresses, IDs, birthdays, and their movement around the country. Over 6.8 million locations were revealed during the leak, leaving everyone in the software completely exposed to hackers who could determine their exact location.
The government is not merely tracking the movement of criminals as everyone will eventually become part of a facial recognition database. China took measures a step further in 2020 by issuing each individual a social credit score that rates how well an individual adheres to the government. We are not free when the government can restrict our movements and assign us a score based on their personal criteria. Facial recognition software is extremely dangerous. Hackers made little effort to access SenseNets files, and in the wrong hands, anyone could be hunted down.
Although they’re less upfront about their plans, other countries plan to follow suit. Canada is rolling out its Digital Identification program, and the World Economic Forum has been advocating for advanced tracking measures. Expect additional tracking software to become commonplace throughout the modern world.
