Dozens of Chinese firms have built software that uses artificial intelligence to sort data collected on residents, amid high demand from authorities seeking to upgrade their surveillance tools, a Reuters review of government documents shows.
According to more than 50 publicly available documents examined by Reuters, dozens of entities in China have over the past four years bought such software, known as “one person, one file”. The technology improves on existing software, which simply collects data but leaves it to people to organise.
“The system has the ability to learn independently and can optimize the accuracy of file creation as the amount of data increases. (Faces that are) partially blocked, masked, or wearing glasses, and low-resolution portraits can also be archived relatively accurately,” according to a tender published in July by the public security department of Henan, China’s third-largest province by population.
Henan’s department of public security did not respond to requests for comment about the system and its uses.
The new software improves on Beijing’s current approach to surveillance. Although China’s existing systems can collect data on individuals, law enforcement and other users have been left to organise it.
Another limitation of current surveillance software is its inability to connect an individual’s personal details to a real-time location except at security checkpoints such as those in airports, according to Jeffrey Ding, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.
China’s Department of Public Security, which oversees regional police authorities, did not respond to a request for comment about one person, one file and its surveillance uses. Besides the police units, 10 bids were opened by Chinese Communist Party bodies responsible for political and legal affairs. China’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission declined to comment.
The tenders examined by Reuters represent a fraction of such efforts by Chinese police units and Party bodies to upgrade surveillance networks by tapping into the power of big data and AI, according to three industry experts interviewed for this story.
According to government documents, some of the software’s users, such as schools, wanted to monitor unfamiliar faces outside their compounds.
The majority, such as police units in southwestern Sichuan province’s Ngawa prefecture, mainly populated by Tibetans, ordered it for more explicit security purposes. The Ngawa tender describes the software as being for “maintaining political security, social stability and peace among the people.”
Ngawa’s department of public security did not respond to requests for comment.
