China's new 'super camera' can instantly pinpoint specific targets among tens of thousands of people
China's new
'super camera' can instantly pinpoint specific targets among tens of thousands
of people
By Tracey Shelton September 26, 2019 Posted
Scientists have unveiled a 500
megapixel cloud camera system in China that they say is capable of capturing
the facial details of each individual in a crowd of tens of thousands of
people, raising fears facial recognition monitoring could soon reach a new level.
Key points:
·
The super camera can instantly detect specific targets in a
crowd of thousands
·
It has the capacity to take both still images and record video
·
The abilities of such a camera raise serious concerns about
privacy
The
camera, which was revealed at China's International Industry Fair last week,
was designed by Fudan University and Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine
Mechanics and Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The
camera's resolution is five times more detailed than the human eye, and it is
also equipped with artificial intelligence (AI), facial recognition, real-time
monitoring and cloud computing technology, designers say.
All
this means it can detect and identify human faces or other objects and
instantly find specific targets even in a crowded stadium, Xiaoyang Zeng, one
of the scientists who worked on the new technology, explained to reporters at
the exhibition display.
He
said this device — dubbed the "super camera" by local media — can
capture both still images and record video.
Australian freelance technology journalist Alex Kidman said the
camera was technically feasible but there were potential difficulties.
"The
challenge for a camera of this scope, especially in a cloud-led AI environment
is the quantity of data that's needed to shuffle around for identification; as
you raise the detail level of each image as the Fudan University scientists
have done, you seriously raise the size of the files — especially for video — a
substantial amount," Kidman said.
"The
serious technical challenge — leaving privacy concerns aside for a second — is
in uploading that data and parsing it in a sensible timeframe for the kinds of
applications they're talking about, especially wirelessly."
The
capacity of such a camera has also raised concerns about privacy in a country
already criticised for heavily monitoring its citizens.
"The
Party-state has massive databases of people's images and the capability to
connect them to their identity, so it isn't inconceivable that technology like
this is possible if not now then in the future," Samantha Hoffman, an
analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told the ABC.
Local
media reported that the camera has received a mixed response from Chinese
experts with some lauding the invention for its military and national security
applications, while others voiced privacy concerns.
China's social credit system
For the
past few years, China has been developing a Social Credit System intended to be
rolled out nationwide which assesses citizens and businesses by
economic and social reputation.
Social
credit is like a scorecard for each of China's 1.4 billion citizens and millions
of businesses.
Just this month, China announced plans to push ahead
with a corporate ranking system that will affect 33 million companies.
The system for citizens is designed
to value and engineer better individual behaviour by awarding
the trustworthy and punishing the disobedient.
Top
"citizen scores" can earn VIP treatment at hotels and airports, cheap
loans and a fast track to the best universities and jobs.
Those
with lower scores can be banned from travel, or barred from getting credit or
government jobs.
The
system is enforced by surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition,
body scanning and geo-tracking to cast a constant gaze over citizens.
The
new 500 megapixel camera could make that process much more efficient.
At
the expo, Mr Zeng explained that while other cameras were capable of filming
thousands of people at once in a wide frame, each face is represented by only a
few pixels, which means "you couldn't clearly see your targeted person at
all".
Ms
Hoffman said data generated from surveillance video can be "fed into a
pool of data that, combined with AI processing, can generate tools for social
control, including tools linked to the Social Credit System".
"I
think it is important to note that third-party data like surveillance video —
[or any information] in addition to data like government records, legal records
or economic records — does not feed into something that generates a score
automatically moving up and down in real time," Ms Hoffman said.
"Of
course, there are separate but linked public security bureau databases that
images like this are more likely to directly feed into."
The
China News Service reported that Mr Zeng had called for laws and regulations to
standardise the application of the camera.
The
developers of the camera did not respond to the ABC's requests for comment.
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