China uses AI-powered facial recognition to identify Uyghurs

The New York Times reports that Chinese authorities are using an extensive AI facial recognition system to keep an eye on a minority group in the west of the country. The Uyghurs are a large Muslim minority in China.

The Chinese authorities have previously deployed a surveillance network in the western region of Xinjiang, where many Uyghurs live, but this has now been expanded to other parts of the country, reports The New York Times. Police are now also using facial recognition to track Uyghurs in wealthier, eastern cities such as Hangzhou and Wenzhou, two sources told the newspaper. In the city of Sanmenxia, ​​such a system has been deployed 500,000 times during a month to determine whether the inhabitants are Uyghurs. It would be the first time that a government consciously uses artificial intelligence to profile a certain ethnic group.

Police documents would indicate that the demand for such capabilities is increasing. Nearly two dozen police departments in 16 different Chinese provinces and regions have been trying to deploy the technology since early 2018. In some documents, this practice has been described as ‘minority identification’, although three sources say the term is a euphemism for a system specifically aimed at identifying Uyghurs. This minority often looks different from the majority in China, the Han Chinese.

The use of such systems to monitor and recognize people is not exactly new in China. For example, the Chinese police are already using glasses with cameras that are intended to track down criminals.