{"id":1233,"date":"2023-10-24T03:59:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T19:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/2023\/10\/24\/chinas-surveillance-breakthroughs-in-2017\/"},"modified":"2024-06-02T22:35:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-02T14:35:29","slug":"chinas-surveillance-breakthrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/chinas-surveillance-breakthrough\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s surveillance breakthroughs in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s surveillance networks are growing faster than anywhere else in the world, and so here we look back on a year when China pushed ahead with watching itself.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Developments in hardware, software, AI, and networking in China have allowed the country to make huge leaps in security. As AI and networking allow the systems to become smarter and connected to more databases, they are increasingly proactive and effective. Many of these advances have come with little fanfare at home, but others have caught public attention, stirring an outcry over the invasion of privacy in public spaces.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s surveillance networks are growing faster than anywhere else in the world, and so here we look back on a year when China pushed ahead with watching itself.<\/p>\n

Facial recognition<\/strong><\/p>\n

2017 was the year facial recognition became mainstream in China. While it may not be in everyday use by many just yet, improving accuracy (and Chinese technology groups continue to win\u00a0international facial recognition competitions) has allowed the concept to be deployed in more locations. Beyond using one\u2019s face for paying in shops and checking into hotels, the technology is being put to use to pick wanted people out of crowds. As well as finding those already suspected of committing a crime, uses of facial recognition to identify people doing things\u00a0such as jaywalking are a way for authorities to influence behavior.<\/p>\n

\"CCTV.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Surveillance cameras including Hikvision models for sale in a Beijing electronics market<\/span><\/p>\n

Image:Frank Hersey<\/p>\n

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Updates continue to emerge of a national facial recognition system that would be connected to cameras. The South China Morning Post reported on the progress of the system that is thought to be able to\u00a0recognize any of China\u2019s 1.3 billion citizens in under 3 seconds.<\/p>\n

Putting a similar system to the test in Guizhou, a BBC reporter was tracked down in minutes after\u00a0arranging with local police to pretend to go on the run in Guiyang.<\/p>\n

Humans are not the only things being monitored: surveillance systems have been installed on certain road networks which can identify cars by the model and tiny changes and scratches unique to a vehicle, whatever license plate it\u2019s sporting.<\/p>\n

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Surveillance cameras<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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A report found that China is expected to have\u00a0626 million security cameras by 2020, up from 176 million in 2016. The Chinese government owns a 42% stake in Hikvision, a company that makes a fifth of all cameras currently sold worldwide. It isn\u2019t clear how many of the cameras that will be installed in China will be enabled with facial recognition, but one company alone, Dahua Technologies<\/a>,\u00a0sold over a million facial recognition cameras last year.<\/p>\n

Beyond facial recognition, camera systems are now using other metrics including gait to determine people\u2019s identity and gender, ethnicity and age linking. These\u00a0then link people to their vehicles\u00a0and to any other people they are spotted with.<\/p>\n

\"Shuidi-noodle-shop.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Shuidi live stream of a noodle shop in Beijing<\/p>\n

Image: Tech Node<\/p>\n

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Smaller scale surveillance hit the headlines after a division of internet security company Qihoo 360, Qihoo 360 Smart Camera, caught public attention with its online platform for security cameras. Individuals and small business owners bought inexpensive CCTV cameras which easily connect to WiFi rather than needing full installation. However, camera owners were connecting the feeds from their cameras to Qihoo 360\u2019s security camera streaming platform, Shuidi. Anyone walking into shot could be watched by anyone anywhere in the world logging into Shuidi. You could even leave comments on what you saw. The fact that these cameras were installed in public places such as restaurants and even children\u2019s dance classes eventually led to\u00a0public outcry over personal privacy and the company issuing a statement\u00a0that it was shutting down the Shuidi platform.<\/p>\n

2017 ended with the Qihoo 360 starting the\u00a0operating of China\u2019s first national cybersecurity innovation center.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Missing people\u2013enabling human surveillance<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Technology is also being used to help find missing people in several ways. Surveillance cameras can pick out individuals, but another approach sends out mass alerts for individuals to do the searching. These systems push alerts to smartphone app users close to the last known whereabouts of missing persons. 2017 saw improvements and greater adoption to the extent that Bytedance\u2019s Toutiao\u00a0became the thing that found the most missing people in China.<\/p>\n

\"Xiaomi-kids-smartwatch.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Xiaomi children\u2019s smartwatch with tracking functionality<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Xiaomi<\/p>\n

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Local authorities in\u00a0Guizhou have acquired 100,000 smartwatches to give to children\u00a0whose parents have left them behind in their search for work in distant cities. The watches let the police monitor the whereabouts of children at all times. But on the plus side, they come with SIM packages that let the children and their parents be in touch.<\/p>\n

Finally,\u00a0surveillance cameras in schools became a hot topic in 2017. The emphasis placed on education, a persistent lack of trust and accountability, emerging discussion on personal privacy and the fact that many parents live far away from their school-age children and may want more opportunities to keep an eye on them has created a context that means the addition of surveillance equipment in schools has proved highly divisive.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0series of scandals in schools\u00a0and a\u00a0high-end kindergarten in Beijing\u00a0made the issue of surveillance in schools a national discussion. While many point out the infringement of privacy, others argue the perceived safety benefits and others point out that the scandals are happening even in schools under surveillance. Qihoo 360 may have shut down its Shuidi platform, but will continue to supply kindergartens with cameras free of charge.<\/p>\n

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Looking ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The coming year is expected to bring more advancements in surveillance technologies and its more mundane applications in shopping<\/a> and travel<\/a>. But beyond that, there are already reports of deeper connections between systems and more sophisticated uses of the data collected, for example in pilot scheme in Chongqing that\u00a0merges private and public surveillance systems.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0Frank Hersey, Technode,<\/p>\n

https:\/\/technode.com\/2018\/01\/17\/surveillance-china-2017\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s surveillance networks are growing faster than anywhere else in the world, and so here we look back on a year when China pushed ahead with watching itself. Developments in …","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[60,628,306,29,34,27,30,214],"class_list":["post-1233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-chinas-surveillance-breakthroughs-in-2017","tag-hiredchina","tag-jobs","tag-jobs-in-china","tag-news","tag-shopping","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9825,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/9825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}