China is considering taking its Big Brother approach to government one step further with plans to use CCTV cameras and artificial intelligence to monitor people across the country.
The plan from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would use the nation’s network of surveillance to find wanted civilians.
Known as EnsembleNet, the programme was trained using 2,000 clips from CCTV footage and is 90 per cent accurate, the firm claims.
Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is hoping to use the nation’s network of surveillance to find wanted civilians. EnsembleNet is believed to be about 90 per cent accurate (stock).
Body shapes and discernible features are spotted, remembered and scanned for in other footage in the database.
The programme is sophisticated enough to spot a person in disguise ‘regardless of the pose or gait’ -and even if some of the features appear different.
The system was used to identify a man with a card attached to his front even when the only other footage of him was when his back was turned to the camera.
‘The seemingly state-of-the-art nature of this particular project is another indication that Chinese military has the capability to achieve notable progress,’ Elsa Kania at the Center for New American Security told New Scientist.
China has already developed various similar techniques to keep track of its more than one billion civilians.
The Asian superpower is hoping to roll out ‘social credit score’ scheme which rates citizens based on their behaviour, and those who do not play by the rules are added to a list that prohibits them from certain luxuries.
The programme is sophisticated enough to spot a person in disguise ‘regardless of the pose or gait’ even if some of the features appear different. One example of its prowess was when the system was used to identify a man wit a card attached to his front even when the only other footage of him was when his back was turned to the camera (stock)
Fears are growing regarding the ethical implications of scheme, with some questioning the morality of the big-brother culture.
The government is likely to use its rapidly growing surveillance network to enforce the system, with some academics growing concerned that it may be manipulated to enforce the ideology of the ruling Communist party.
Completing community service and buying Chinese products is thought to improve it whereas fraud, tax evasion and smoking in non-smoking areas can drop it.
Benefits of cooperating with the state include priority public housing, travel visas and job promotions.
One journalist says he is banned from sending his children to private school or buying property after a court ordered him to apologise for an unfavourable tweet about the regime.
