Although privacy concerns have slowed down the progress of facial recognition technology in some regions. But in China, many people have become accustomed to scanning their faces every day. Facial scanning is often required from payment to visiting residential areas, student dormitories, hotels, etc. This technology has even been used to solve a long-standing problem for decades, namely the frequent theft of toilet paper from the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. These public toilets are now equipped with automatic paper dispensers that can recognize users’ faces, thereby preventing frequent intruders.
More importantly, Alibaba’s online payment service Ant Financial has launched a new feature, allowing its 450 million users to log in to their online wallets through selfies. China Construction Bank allows users to make payments through facial scanning on certain vending machines, and the ride hailing app Didi Chuxing is also using facial recognition technology to verify the driver’s identity. Baidu has developed doors that require facial recognition to enter, which can be used for offices or ticketing attractions.
The Chinese people’s preference for this technology has helped create the world’s first facial recognition “unicorn”, namely Face++located in Beijing. The company raised $100 million in its third round of funding in December 2016, with a valuation of over $1 billion.
As a new visual service platform under Beijing Megvii Technology Co., Ltd., Face++has licensed its software to Didi Chuxing and Ant Financial for use. In many densely populated cities in China, there are usually long queues outside banks, and Face++smelled the first business opportunity from it. The company stated, “You need to wait for a long time to process the business you need, so we provide facial recognition services for the fintech sector.” Now, Face++plans to focus on the retail industry.
Although the fundamental artificial intelligence research behind facial recognition technology in China is at a similar level to that in Europe and America, China has already gained a leading advantage in commercial applications. Cold Biao, a human recognition technology expert at Beihang University, said, “Google has not fully pursued facial recognition technology because it has higher long-term aspirations. In fact, its facial recognition technology is already very mature. However, Chinese large companies are more focused on short-term benefits, and they see facial recognition technology as the fastest and best way to use AI to gain a foothold. ”
Chinese facial recognition startups are also receiving positive feedback: the more widely their technology is used, the better it will become. With the increasing number of commercial applications in real life, more and more data is fed back into the system, thereby helping to improve deep learning. If all AI applications are like that, accessing data is crucial. The combination of China’s large population and lax privacy laws has resulted in extremely low costs for accessing information treasures.
Leng Biao said, “China has no regulation on collecting other people’s photos, so collecting data in China is much easier than in the United States. In the early days, you could even buy other people’s photos for only 5 yuan.” Shanghai Simmons&Simmons lawyer Xun Yang said, “Until recently, Chinese people regarded privacy as a negative concept. It wasn’t until 2009 that the first law explicitly prohibited the abuse of personal information was enacted
In view of this, compared with Western competitors, Chinese companies appear bolder in launching facial recognition technology. Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, once called facial recognition “creepy” in 2011 and promised not to create user photo datasets. So far, the commercial application of facial recognition technology in the United States has been limited to annotating people in social media photos.
Although Nest, a smart home subsidiary of Alphabet, has also integrated facial recognition technology into its security cameras, its functionality is limited in Illinois due to strict biometric data collection laws. In addition, facial recognition technology may also be abused. Unlike fingerprints, facial recognition can be performed passively, meaning that users may not even know they are being detected. The Chinese government has applied facial recognition technology to surveillance cameras at train stations to alert the police to passengers who are prohibited from traveling.
By cooperating with the government ID system, the market for future biometric technology (including facial recognition) in China is constantly expanding. China has the world’s largest national identity verification photo database, which contains photos of over 1 billion people, while the United States has only 400 million people. In addition, Chinese people have become accustomed to inserting their ID cards into chip readers for setting mobile phone numbers, purchasing train tickets, and checking into hotels. China is also the first country in the world to implant radio frequency identification technology into its ID card.
November 11, 2021
