According to a report from the New York Times published on Sunday, the Chinese government is using a facial recognition system to track Uighurs, the country’s Muslim minority. The technology reportedly targets this population based on their physical appearance.
According to government procurement documents obtained by the Times, beginning last year, nearly two dozen police departments in China wanted technology that could identify and track Uighur individuals. And the documents reportedly indicate that the interest in this type of tech has grown in the last two years. In Yongzhou, for instance, police wanted software that could “characterize and search whether or not someone is a Uighur.”
via ‘Automated Racism’: Chinese Police Are Reportedly Using AI to Identify Minority Faces