Chinese security operatives have began to use smart glasses equipped with facial recognition technology to identify citizens. The new initiative is to help identify culprits, missing persons, or crime witnesses by scanning the faces of people in a crowd and areas where there are no CCTV cameras. Before now the country uses CCTV cameras that can identify citizens and even track their movements around, now the facial recognition sunglasses will help security personnel in both crowed area and areas where are no cameras.
While this may be a good initiative, some organisations are already criticizing the new move. One of such, is Amnesty International who believes that this will only help grow the country’s invasive surveillance.
The glasses are made by LLVision Technology Co., a Beijing-based company, but are currently in use at Zhengzhou, a large city in east-central China. The new glasses are being used by police officers in train stations to scan those traveling for the Chinese New Year Holiday. Report has it that seven suspects have been nabbed as well as 26 persons travelling with forged identifications. Report says that the glass cost ¥3999 which is about $636 around N230,000 per unit
