China Expands Security Tech Arsenal

At a highway checkpoint on the outskirts of Beijing, local police are this week testing out a new security tool: Smart glasses that can pick up facial features and car registration plates, and match them in real-time with a database of suspects.

The AI-powered glasses, made by LLVision, scan the faces of vehicle occupants and the plates, flagging with a red box and warning sign to the wearer when any match up with a centralized “blacklist”, Reuters reported.

The trial, which coincides with the annual meeting of China’s Parliament in central Beijing, underscores a major push by China’s leaders to leverage technology to boost security.

That drive has led to growing concerns that China is developing a sophisticated surveillance state that will intensify crackdowns on dissent.

Under President Xi Jinping, Chin is making a major push to use artificial intelligence, facial recognition and big data technology to track and control behavior that goes against the interests of the ruling Communist Party on the Web and in the wider world.

China has been deploying a growing arsenal of security technology, fuelling the growth of a domestic industry and worrying civil rights defenders about the growing intrusion on individual privacy.

The new technologies range from police robots for crowd control, to drones to monitor border areas and artificially intelligent systems to track and censor behavior online.

There are also scanners to forcibly read mobile phone data and even police dogs with virtual reality cameras.