The Chinese technology helping New York police keep a closer eye on the United States’ biggest city
Stephen Chen
South China Morning Post
11 January 2019
New York City’s police department is monitoring citizens using cameras and facial recognition software developed in China.
The surveillance tools are identical to those used in Sky Net in China, the largest video surveillance system on Earth, Chinese government research institutes and a company involved in the project said.
At a time when China and the United States are locked in a rivalry on several fronts including trade and technology, Hikvision – which is the world’s largest surveillance technology company and based in Hangzhou in eastern China – has supplied the equipment and software used by an American force that polices a population of about 8.6 million people.
It has been claimed that Hikvision’s system can accurately identify faces regardless of race, whereas some Western-developed technology had previously been more accurate for white people than for black citizens – although the NYPD has not discussed its reasons for using the Chinese technology.
The Sky Net programme, now renamed Pingan Chengshi, or Safe Cities, claimed to have connected 170 million cameras across China last year. By 2020, another 400 million units will be installed, it said, casting a watchful eye on every two citizens. Beijing plans to be able to identify anyone, anytime, anywhere in China within three seconds.
One American community where the Sky Net-style technology has been rolled out is River Park Towers, in the Bronx, the northernmost of New York’s five boroughs.
River Park Towers is one of New York City’s largest government-subsidised housing developments for lower-income families. Completed in 1975, it has a chequered history of arson, drug rings and gang violence. Police tried to cut crime but were faced with accusations of heavy-handed stop-and-search tactics and home searches without warrants.
This Chinese city is policing the streets with facial recognition cameras
There were complaints alleging racist policing, according to US media reports, with officers accused of profiling African-Americans as criminals.
Thousands of Sky Net cameras, aided by artificial intelligence (AI) software, have monitored River Park since 2014, according to the Hikvision website.
Cameras equipped with infrared sensors and capable of capturing high-resolution facial images even in very low light were installed in entrances, lobbies, corridors and stairwells in an effort to defeat vandalism.
The Hikvision surveillance system was bought and installed by the River Park Towers property management company, and the NYPD had direct access to the network, according to an article in Security Products Magazine.
Officers could view footage remotely and observe suspects in detail without a conspicuous police presence, the article said.
In one instance, a young man wanted by the police entered the complex to see a friend. His photo was in the computer database and facial recognition software triggered an alert to officers.
The cameras tracked the man’s movements throughout the building. When he entered the lobby on the ground floor with his friend, he was arrested. The NYPD did not respond to enquiries about the technology by the South China Morning Post.
Hikvision’s software, which can spot and follow a person by face, figure or gait, can accurately identify people of all skin tones.
Technology companies including Microsoft and IBM used mostly white models to train their AI.
In February 2018, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study found that a Microsoft machine could recognise white males every time but had a margin of error of more than 20 per cent when used to identify a black woman.
Google, meanwhile, had apologised after its AI identified African Americans as “gorillas” in 2015.
In response to enquiries from the Post, Google said it was appalled by that mistake and had taken steps to fix it, although “like all systems, it’s definitely not perfect”.
More @ https://sg.news.yahoo.com/chinese-technology-helping-york-police-150519206.html
Stephen Chen
South China Morning Post
11 January 2019
New York City’s police department is monitoring citizens using cameras and facial recognition software developed in China.
The surveillance tools are identical to those used in Sky Net in China, the largest video surveillance system on Earth, Chinese government research institutes and a company involved in the project said.
At a time when China and the United States are locked in a rivalry on several fronts including trade and technology, Hikvision – which is the world’s largest surveillance technology company and based in Hangzhou in eastern China – has supplied the equipment and software used by an American force that polices a population of about 8.6 million people.
It has been claimed that Hikvision’s system can accurately identify faces regardless of race, whereas some Western-developed technology had previously been more accurate for white people than for black citizens – although the NYPD has not discussed its reasons for using the Chinese technology.
The Sky Net programme, now renamed Pingan Chengshi, or Safe Cities, claimed to have connected 170 million cameras across China last year. By 2020, another 400 million units will be installed, it said, casting a watchful eye on every two citizens. Beijing plans to be able to identify anyone, anytime, anywhere in China within three seconds.
One American community where the Sky Net-style technology has been rolled out is River Park Towers, in the Bronx, the northernmost of New York’s five boroughs.
River Park Towers is one of New York City’s largest government-subsidised housing developments for lower-income families. Completed in 1975, it has a chequered history of arson, drug rings and gang violence. Police tried to cut crime but were faced with accusations of heavy-handed stop-and-search tactics and home searches without warrants.
This Chinese city is policing the streets with facial recognition cameras
There were complaints alleging racist policing, according to US media reports, with officers accused of profiling African-Americans as criminals.
Thousands of Sky Net cameras, aided by artificial intelligence (AI) software, have monitored River Park since 2014, according to the Hikvision website.
Cameras equipped with infrared sensors and capable of capturing high-resolution facial images even in very low light were installed in entrances, lobbies, corridors and stairwells in an effort to defeat vandalism.
The Hikvision surveillance system was bought and installed by the River Park Towers property management company, and the NYPD had direct access to the network, according to an article in Security Products Magazine.
Officers could view footage remotely and observe suspects in detail without a conspicuous police presence, the article said.
In one instance, a young man wanted by the police entered the complex to see a friend. His photo was in the computer database and facial recognition software triggered an alert to officers.
The cameras tracked the man’s movements throughout the building. When he entered the lobby on the ground floor with his friend, he was arrested. The NYPD did not respond to enquiries about the technology by the South China Morning Post.
Hikvision’s software, which can spot and follow a person by face, figure or gait, can accurately identify people of all skin tones.
Technology companies including Microsoft and IBM used mostly white models to train their AI.
In February 2018, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study found that a Microsoft machine could recognise white males every time but had a margin of error of more than 20 per cent when used to identify a black woman.
Google, meanwhile, had apologised after its AI identified African Americans as “gorillas” in 2015.
In response to enquiries from the Post, Google said it was appalled by that mistake and had taken steps to fix it, although “like all systems, it’s definitely not perfect”.
More @ https://sg.news.yahoo.com/chinese-technology-helping-york-police-150519206.html
