Facial recognition: IT and police in delicate dance

Brace yourselves, the surveillance state is upon us, and I suspect protecting the public from terrorists ... uh ... I mean, 'protecting the public health', will be the glib justification for following the Chinese Social Credit system of 5G technology, A.I., and a cashless society.

From an article in JT a couple of weeks ago, I understand Japan's first experiment with 5G 'services' will be up and running by the end of the month in West Shinjuku, and from other news, the LDP is urging banks to lower the transfer fees to allow for an easier transition to going to a 'cashless, digital, fiat currency' ... a euphemism for the BOJ's 'trust us. We borrowed this from faith in the future'. Same as the U.S. Fed. Wall Street stocks are soaring while 20% of the population is filing for unemployment? How's that working out?

The 'dark-triad' ruling elite and their social engineers do not acknowledge homo sapiens as social primates grounded in empathy-driven communities. We are quickly being herded into rule-driven institutions and algorithm-driven populations.

But with the elite's betrayal of our trust in their institutions, and without our own communities to fall back on, no wonder the psyche is broken. The increase in mental health problems, the rising income gap, domestic violence, and random acts of violence are just the tip of the iceberg this Titanic is about to hit. We hapless passengers, homo sapiens, evolution's first, only, and probably final experiment with 'herding primates'.

Excellent post, Steve.

Restaurants only accepting Cash, and not card/cashless payments are concealing transactions to avoid paying tax.

No, that's not a conclusion that can logically be made. Rhetoric at best.

Anyways, in Japan, businesses legally have to accept cash as legal tender. They are also allowed to have other cashless payment systems in place, but are required to accept cash.

China has begun to export its facial recognition technology, particularly via its telecoms equipment giant Huawei.

That Huawei technology will be the ruin of us all

Sell-serving authorities will use it for their own advantage

Just don't get into trouble.

Violence at protests, gives a bad name to them, gives a bad name to Democracy, in-fact, discourages people from exercising their Democratic right due to the fear that they will be caught up within some violent confrontation.

One of the disadvantages of Cash only transactions for the Government, is that they don't know about them. Restaurants only accepting Cash, and not card/cashless payments are concealing transactions to avoid paying tax. This, is one of the reasons why Governments are promoting Cashless.... though at present, few have the performance... SUICA does though.

It's unfortunate that extremists and opportunists use the cover of legit, democratic protests in which people exercise their fundamental right to protest government actions, to cause anarchy and fear.

The legitimate protestors need to be separately identified from this group. Otherwise it would be like blaming shoppers for a shoplifer. The shoplifter uses the cover of other shoppers to be able to steal. The shoppers are there, doing something they're supposed to and allowed to be doing, and that cover is used by opportunists. Same as the anarchists.

Unfortunately, there is a significantly large group of people in this world that lack the intelligence to realize that the looters and anarchists are not the protestors.

The face needs to be visible for the facial technology to work, with the current worldwide requirement of facial mask, this technology will have serious limitations, the AFP reporter should have known better.

The face needs to be visible for the facial technology to work, with the current worldwide requirement of facial mask, this technology will have serious limitations, the AFP reporter should have known better.

I'll admit, I don't know better, I'm not one who is particularly knowledeable on the inner workings of facial recognition technology.

But I do know my iphone now unlocks even when I'm wearing a mask. So it seems to me that facial recognition can work around this to some degree.

the AFP reporter should have known better.

Reporters are supposed to know the inner workings of facial recognition technology? What other technologies are they supposed to have an understanding of the internal workings?

Reporters are supposed to know the inner workings of facial recognition technology?

Definitely, that's what a technology reporter should be doing..

As A.I. technologies and facial recognition technology advances, I presume that eventually services requiring cards will be replaced, in a similar way to iPhones.