This Scary Chinese Surveillance Video Is Serious Cause For Concern, But Just Not Why You Think

You may have seen a scary video doing the rounds on social media, of what looks like something out of a science fiction film. It shows what CCTV footage of a road in China, with what looks like detailed surveillance being carried out on the people making their way around.

Chinese surveillance system. Holy fucking shit pic.twitter.com/0h9oxU1ezH

¡ª al-baqara (@0XDEDBEEF) September 24, 2017

Your first thought might be about how realistic this looks. Well, that¡¯s because it is. But don¡¯t panic, you don¡¯t have the full story yet. It¡¯s likely this isn¡¯t actually surveillance at all, though it¡¯s definitely well on it¡¯s way to that end.

Allow me to explain.

What you¡¯re looking at above is the work of SenseTime, a Chinese computer vision startup. The software in question, called SenseVideo, is a visual scenario analytics system. Basically, it can analyse video footage to pinpoint whether moving objects are humans, cars, or other entities. It¡¯s even sophisticated enough to detect gender, clothing, and the type of vehicle it¡¯s looking at, all in real time.

That¡¯s why, in the video above, different objects are outlined with different colours. Pedestrians have yellow boxes, cyclists and non-motor vehicles have red boxes, and cars have blue boxes. You can even see one of the cyclists flickering from red to yellow and back as he¡¯s partially obscured from the camera by pedestrians. That¡¯s the software at work.

As for that text next to each person, no it¡¯s not their name, age, or any other personal details. According to a few users on Reddit that read the language (unfortunately we can¡¯t independently verify that) the markers are descriptors like man, woman, adult, short sleeves, pants, large, vehicle, red, white, etc. It¡¯s basically everything SenseVideo does, a statement that seems to fit since a lot of objects in the video have the same markers.

In fact, here's what seems to be the same software in an English version.

If all of this is true, it¡¯s basically a traffic police set up backed by artificial intelligence, one that could be used to analyse traffic flow patterns, automatically flag violations, and sync signal patterns. However, though it¡¯s most likely benign technology, there¡¯s most certainly a possibility for it to become the terrifying surveillance method it looks like.

The Scary Implications

For one thing, it¡¯s no secret that China greatly censors its users¡¯ Internet habits. In fact, just today, the government managed to completely block off WhatsApp, forcing citizens to switch to other options like the home-grown WeChat. An option that¡¯s easily monitored because it requires users to register with their personal details.

So imagine if you will, a future where all China has to do is plug in all of that personal data at its disposal into this program. A user¡¯s name, age, face, all of it in a tracking system that could be given a narrow enough search field just by pinging your phone or IMEI number. It¡¯s unclear whether even China has enough server farms for the amount of compute power it would require to monitor so many people in real time. But if they don¡¯t yet, it¡¯s not hard to imagine that they will within the next decade.

If this looks similar to the game 'Watch Dogs', or TV show 'Person of Interest', you're damned right it does!

And that¡¯s not necessarily even a far-fetched thought. SenseTime is a China-based company, in a country that heavily favours home-grown business and products. As a result, it¡¯s been contracted to apply its technology to various other software in the past. It¡¯s face detection tech is in many bank and e-wallet software within the country, in order to help people make transactions using their face as a password. It¡¯s also used as a photo album feature in the country¡¯s biggest social network, Sina Weibo, as well as in similar features in Xiaomi and Huawei smartphones.

Most worrisome, however, is that SenseTimes¡¯ facial detection tech is being used by TRIMPS, China¡¯s Third Research Institute of Ministry of Public Security, to develop something called a Public Citizen Network identification system. Think of it like your Aadhaar Card, as a sort of nationwide identification system complete with government documentation and photos. After all that, you¡¯d think syncing all that data to AI-powered CCTV cameras should be too hard.

So yes, you should be scared, but not because of a fake video today. Be afraid because of a reality we may face tomorrow.