You may be able to avoid surveillance by keeping your face away from cameras, but what if you can be identified by the way you walk?
Watrix, a Chinese artificial intelligence company, claims that their latest Gait Recognition System can recognize people by their body shape and how they walk, with an accuracy rate of just over 94 percent.
According to Huang, the co-founder of Watrix, once the system is trained, it can spot people using cameras from up to 50 meters (165 feet) away, without any facial image.
Beijing has invested heavily in data-driven surveillance in recent years, blanketing China with more than 100 million cameras.
Watrix was incubated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and has raised tens of millions of dollars in funding.
Although the software isn’t yet capable of identifying people in real-time, it only requires footage from common surveillance cameras.
Shi Shusi, a columnist and commentator, says it’s unsurprising that China is a leader in surveillance technologies.
“We found that some technologies develop faster in China than in western countries, and bio-metrics identification is one of them. I’m not surprised at all. These investments are considered necessary expenses to maintain social stability.”