This device can identify individual faces out of crowds of tens of thousands; will take mass surveillance to a new level.
A new camera with a resolution five times more detailed than the human eye, able to monitor thousands of people in real time and identify individual faces has been unveiled by Chinese scientists, prompting renewed fears about mass surveillance.
ABC News in Australia reports that the new 500 megapixel cloud camera AI system, dubbed a ‘super camera’, was revealed at China’s International Industry Fair last week.
The camera system, equipped with state of the art facial recognition utilities, was designed by Fudan University and Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The designers claim that the system can detect and identify thousands of human faces or other objects in real time and instantly locate specific targets in environments such as crowded stadiums.
Of course, it would work equally as well at protests.
The designers suggested that police could set up the camera system in the center of Shanghai and monitor the movement of crowds, while cross-checking the images with medical and criminal records.
Li Daguang, a professor at the National Defense University of the People’s Liberation Army in Beijing told the Global Times that the system could “very easily be applied to national defense, military and public security.”
Technology like this in the hands of Communist Chinese authorities, who already operate a citizen social credit system, does not bode well for privacy rights and freedom.