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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Facial recognition tech targets mask-wearers

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Facial recognition tech targets mask-wearers
Facial recognition tech targets mask-wearers

A Chinese company says it has developed the country's first facial recognition technology that can identify people when they are wearing a mask, as most are these days because of the coronavirus, and help in the fight against the disease.

Soraya Ali reports.

Facial recognition, even with masks.

A Chinese company says it's developed technology to identify people even while they're wearing surgical masks amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The spread of the virus has posed a problem for China, which employs some of the world's most sophisticated systems of electronic surveillance, including facial recognition.

But now Hanwang Technology may have found a solution.

Their vice president, Huang Lei, spoke to Reuters.

(SOUNDBITE) (Mandarin) HANWANG TECHNOLOGY VICE PRESIDENT, HUANG LEI, SAYING: "In the current climate of China, facing a mass return to work and return to production, people have to wear masks at the workplace, on public transport and in other public areas.

In the past we had to take off our masks to use facial recognition to go through entrances, arrive at work and to go through customs or other channels.

But in the current situation, taking off masks increases the risk of cross-infection." The Beijing-based firm began work in January as the coronavirus outbreak picked up, and began rolling it out to the market just one month later.

Huang claims it can identify everyone in a crowd of up to 30 people "within a second," but he did note that the system struggles to identify people wearing both a mask and sunglasses.

The company has about 200 clients in Beijing using the technology, including the Ministry of Public Security, and they expect scores more across 20 provinces to start installing it soon.

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