China is one of the most surveilled societies on Earth, with thousands of CCTV cameras scattered across cities and facial recognition technology widely used in everything from day-to-day law enforcement to political repression.
Draft regulations released by China's Cyberspace Administration warned that use of the technology must "abide by laws and regulations, comply with public order, respect social morality, assume social responsibility, and fulfil duties to protect personal information."
Use of the technology to "analyse... ethnicity or religion" is prohibited, and the processing of facial data can only be carried out with the individual's consent or written legal permission, the law said.
It must also not be used to "endanger national security, harm public interests", or "disrupt social order", the regulations said.
Such technology may be used "only when there is a specific purpose and sufficient necessity, and when strict protection measures are taken", reads one article of the regulation.
But, it stipulated, the rules would not apply to those "not required by laws and administrative regulations to obtain personal consent". It did not specify what those were.
The regulations will enter effect on September 7 following a public consultation period.
A number of top Chinese facial recognition and surveillance firms have faced sanctions by the United States for their alleged role in repression.
State-owned surveillance giant Hikvision was blacklisted in the United States for allegedly helping Beijing carry out a "campaign of repression".
And Hong Kong-listed SenseTime was placed on a similar blacklist in 2019 over the use of its technology in mass surveillance in the western region of Xinjiang.
At an industry expo in Beijing in June, AFP saw a number of prominent firms showcasing tech that allowed them to identify "undesirable" behaviours and scan faces from more than 100 metres (yards) away.
US mom blames face recognition tech for flawed arrest
San Francisco (AFP) Aug 7, 2023 -
A mother is suing the city of Detroit, saying unreliable facial recognition technology led to her being falsely arrested for carjacking while she was eight months pregnant.
Porcha Woodruff was getting her two children ready for school the morning of February 16 when a half-dozen police officers showed up at her door to arrest her, taking her away in handcuffs, the 32-year-old Detroit woman said in a federal lawsuit.
"They presented her with an arrest warrant for robbery and carjacking, leaving her baffled and assuming it was a joke, given her visibly pregnant state," her attorney wrote in a lawsuit accusing the city of false arrest.
The suit, filed Thursday, argues that police relied on facial recognition technology that should not be trusted, given "inherent flaws and unreliability, particularly when attempting to identify Black individuals" such as Woodruff.
Some experts say facial recognition technology is more prone to error when analyzing the faces of people of color.
In a statement Sunday, the Wayne County prosecutor's office said the warrant that led to Woodruff's arrest was on solid ground, NBC News reported.
"The warrant was appropriate based upon the facts," it said.
The case began in late January, when police investigating a reported carjacking by a gunman used imagery from a gas station's security video to track down a woman believed to have been involved in the crime, according to the suit.
Facial recognition analysis from the video identified Woodruff as a possible match, the suit said.
Woodruff's picture from a 2015 arrest was in a set of photos shown to the carjacking victim, who picked her out, according to the lawsuit.
Woodruff was freed on bond the day of her arrest and the charges against her were later dropped due to insufficient evidence, the civil complaint maintained.
"This case highlights the significant flaws associated with using facial recognition technology to identify criminal suspects," the suit argued.
Woodruff's suit seeks unspecified financial damages as well as legal fees.
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