NANCHANG, CHINA (CelebrityAccess) A criminal suspect was arrested at a pop concert by Jacky Cheung at an stadium in China April 7 after police used facial recognition technology to identify him.
The arrest was made at a facility with a 70,000 capacity in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, according to Kankan News.
China has been making news lately for implementing facial recognition technology throughout the country. Chinese police have been using sunglasses with built-in facial recognition technology in Zhengzhou. One estimate has the country installing more than 600 million CCTV cameras by 2020, according to The Verge.
Meanwhile, SenseTime, AI software used by police, has become the world’s most valuable startup company: A recent round of funding of $600 million, led by retailing giant Alibaba, gave SenseTime a total valuation of more than $4.5 billion, according to analyst firm CB Inisights.
The man, surnamed Ao, was spotted by a network of intelligent security facial recognition cameras installed at the venue, according to Supchina. His face was scanned against a database of suspects and was apparently on a police watchlist for “economic crimes.”
“He looked extremely astonished when we arrested him,” a police officer told Kankan News. “Apparently he didn’t anticipate being caught by the police in such a massive crowd.”
This is nothing new: police arrested 25 criminal suspects using 18 facial recognition cameras at the International Beer Festival in Qingdao last year.
“This is the first time we have used facial recognition technology for such a massive security check,” Li Peng, head of the local police station’s publicity department, told Sixth Tone at the time.
The technology is even used in bathrooms in Beijing, installed into dispensers, to keep people from stealing toilet paper, Supchina said.
