China bans compulsory facial recognition and its use in private spaces like hotel rooms

https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/23/asia_tech_news_in_brief/

200 points · 9 comments · view on lemmy.world

9 Comments

aleats@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 61 pts · 1y

Government-sponsored facial recognition aside, I was gonna celebrate this as a rare event of a government doing something right, but then

The measures don’t apply to researchers or to what machine translation of the rules describes as “algorithm training activities” – suggesting images of citizens’ faces are fair game when used to train AI models.

and I feel like that undermines the entire idea, since you can easily hide behind that excuse and not give a shit. And given previous circumstances, I feel like a lot of companies are gonna get away with it.

21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com · 45 pts · 1y (3 replies)

That's a fantastic move but it also goes under "worst guy you know makes a great point".

CosmoNova@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 1y (1 reply)

And that guy is likely lying about it too.

21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com · 5 pts · 1y

They didn't include government surveillance in that. I don't doubt for a second the Chinese government's willingness to regulate hotel door locks and whatnot. Better question is how much resources go into enforcement (zero isn't a terrible bet) and how quickly businesses respond to the new regulations (I honestly don't know China in that respect but I could see an American hotel in the same situation waiting until somebody proverbially twisted their arm on the issue).

kameecoding@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1y
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de · 18 pts · 1y (1 reply)

I'm sure that ban doesn't apply to government operated facial recognition cameras though.

Makhno@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y

I think it'd be naive to assume your own government isn't doing the same thing

BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one · 4 pts · 1y

The thumbnail art is cool af

tlekiteki@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1y (1 reply)

Facial recognition is dystopian, sure. But its also a security risk against foreign adversaries. No, sir, it is not `on brand´ for China.

tlekiteki@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 1y
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