Or, you know, 4) the project works very well, and they want to advertise it and instill some fear in people...

And/or sell the system. Plenty of regimes out there that would love this capability.

That would be my guess. It was probably expensive so they are looking to sell it.

That would be admitting that Chinese technologies are gaining momentum. Not something you're suppose to say here on HN :)

I think it is closer to your 3rd possibility.

There's also the possibility that they want to show (fake) the supposed power of this system even to their own citizens to elevate the apparent reach of the government.

Say what you want about rights, but Chinese government is ruthlessly efficient about what it wants done, and it rarely loses (except for the recent trade relations fiasco)

>except for the recent trade relations fiasco

Assuming it was a fiasco, which is not very clearly the case (if you speak about the tarrifs thing).

Why not advertise it? Possible reasons:

1. Maybe wanted criminals would change their appearance or hide their faces. Even that outcome might be a significant deterrent to committing crimes, going forward.

2. Public discontent about the system. This is unlikely to be much of a problem in China.

They have a lot more to gain (deterrence) than they do to lose.

I don't know if this is the main reason, but I read an article saying that Chinese companies were starting to export this tech to other countries. So that would be one way to "advertise" its effectiveness.

Also, the more China gets other countries to enable the same kind of censorship and surveillance it does, too, the more it won't stand-out as a sore thumb and the less it will be called out by "principled" leaders in the future.

I've worked in the industry for since 2003. Algorithm improvements in the past few years have been impressive. Plus if you set up a decent chokepoint at the ticket gate and get good images things are even easier for the algorithm.

Are you at ISC West?

Maybe they just want to show off to discourage any trouble makers (including political ones)?

Perhaps China is advertising this to deter crime, as a potential criminal might worry about facial recognition before doing something illegal.

"crime"

There does exist such thing as "crime", even in China (imagine that). It's not all angelic citizens and among them, some angelic dissidents.

The surveillance AI knows nothing of the difference between malum in se (crime!) and malum prohibitum ("crime"). The pamphleteer protesting local corruption and the strongarm robber are caught in the same trap.

> The surveillance AI knows nothing of the difference between malum in se (crime!) and malum prohibitum ("crime")

And for the humans in charge of the AI there is no such distinction so the AI is working as intended.

It’s a deterrent and a positive press hit.

State DMVs in the US get press hits all of the time when they upgrade facial recognition systems and catch people with multiple driver licenses.

> The bigger question is why are China advertising this

Striking fear into citizens; literally state terrorism.

Contrast with the US which keeps it's NSA spying and data collection private. Until it isn't.

> Contrast with the US which keeps it's NSA spying and data collection private. Until it isn't.

I think the USA is a bit behind China and the UK in applying surveillance technology to target individuals for petty things. Sure , it's technologically viable, but it seems there's no will yet to punish the evil jay walker with the full force of law.