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At a checkpoint on a highway on the outskirts of Beijing, the Chinese police are testing this week a new security tool, smart glasses that can capture facial details and metal plates and instantly match the suspects' database.
The glasses are produced by LV Vision and scan the faces of the passengers and the metal plates. If the data matches those in a central "blacklist", a red flag and a warning signal are displayed.
According to Reuters, the test coincides with the annual meeting of the Chinese parliament in central Beijing and highlights the efforts of China's leaders to use technology to enhance security.
The move has raised fears of China's efforts to impose a sophisticated watchdog situation, including more crackdown on the opposition.
David Bandorski, co-director of the China Media Project, a research project in the field of media studies at the University of Hong Kong, said the Chinese leadership "was at some point afraid of the progress of communication technology and the Internet and today considers it tools indispensable for social and political control" .
Wu said in the CEO of LV Vision that there was nothing to worry about as the Chinese authorities used the equipment for noble reasons of arresting suspects and fugitives.
Police used smart glasses to help identify suspects and vehicles in the Beijing area in recent days.
Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has been able to make a big push in the use of artificial intelligence, face recognition and information technology to monitor and control any behavior detrimental to the interests of the ruling Communist Party, whether on the Internet or in the outside world.
Delegates and visitors must enter the Great Hall of the People, the seat of the National People's Congress (parliament), passing through facets. The same thing happened with those who attended the meeting of the Political Consultative Conference, the advisory body of the People's Assembly.
"This year, security was used in both sessions alongside modern black technology on the Internet," the state-run Science and Technology Daily reported. "The cameras were updated at the two conferences to capture, analyze and compare faces in about two seconds using a system called SkyNet, Data of suspects.
"The story of the science fiction film Minority Report is now a part of everyday life," she said, referring to Tom Cruise's film about a future society where crimes are known and perpetrators arrested even before they commit the crime.
China is using an increasing arsenal of security technology, raising the concern of civil rights defenders about the increasing interference in the privacy of individuals.
One of the most troubling concerns for jurists is that black lists can include large audiences of society, such as lawyers, artists, political opponents, charity workers, journalists and jurists.
The new technology includes robotic crowd-control robots, drones to monitor borders and industrial intelligence systems to monitor and block any antisocial behavior on the Internet. There are also scanners reading data on mobile phones and sniffer dogs equipped with cameras for panoramic photography.
A Human Rights Watch report on human rights said China was also expanding its audio database to enhance voice recognition.