Authorities in Henan Province, China, have created a facial-recognition system to monitor journalists and other “people of concern.” The BBC reports.
According to the documents, the system is connected to thousands of surveillance cameras across the province.
One of the groups of interest to the Henan Public Security Bureau is journalists, including foreigners. They were classified into three levels of “risk”:
- red — the greatest concern;
- yellow — widespread concern;
- green — harmless.
If journalists classified as red or yellow travel to the province with a ticket, the system will alert local authorities.
Another group under surveillance is foreign students. They will be divided into “outstanding,” “ordinary,” and “unstable.”
“Security assessment is conducted with a focus on daily attendance of foreign students, exam results, country of arrival, and compliance with school discipline,” the documents say.
Educational institutions are required to notify authorities about students with security concerns.
The system is also intended to track migrant women. It will be integrated with the National Immigration Bureau, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Henan provincial police.
Additionally, the system is to incorporate other data sources to track “people of concern,” including data from smartphones, social networks, information about vehicles, ticket and hotel bookings, and publicly available photographs.
The provincial authorities did not comment on the information.
In March, Facebook blocked a group of hackers from China who used a surveillance platform to monitor Uyghur journalists and activists.
In May, a software engineer described testing of an emotion-recognition system on Xinjiang residents in police stations.
In July, the United States imposed sanctions on Chinese AI companies for rights violations against Uyghurs.
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