Dear Reader
Novel Coronavirus, known as COVID-19, is now spreading fast to countries such as Italy and South Korea, after seemingly showing some signs of abatement in China, where it originated late last year to infect over 75,000 people and claim over 2600 lives. Health authorities around the world have sounded high alerts and the World Health Organisation is just short of naming it as a Pandemic.
People have adopted ways of lessening the chances of their exposure to this deadly virus, to which there is no medical cure yet, except isolation of victims and supporting their respiratory systems and hoping for their recovery. Millions and millions of people all over the world have taken to wearing face masks while stepping out of their homes and millions have resorted to working from home, if their work and/or employers permit, even whole cities have been placed in a ‘lock-down’ mode. The robust and young with no prior health issues have been found to stand a better chance of recovering.
Governments and citizens have leveraged technology to spread the awareness of this deadly infection to help curtail its spread. Social media and chat platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram have been utilised extensively to make billions of people aware all over the globe.
Smart video surveillance cameras with analytics, especially face recognition and thermal cameras have been utilised by governments worldwide, especially in countries such as China, Russia and Thailand among others to boost security and surveillance.
As Artificial Intelligence and the use of data becomes more advanced, Beijing has found increasingly effective ways to track the Chinese population, including facial recognition. China is trying to control the spread of the virus, believed to have first emerged from Wuhan city in Hubei province, which has already killed at least 2,500 people in the mainland. Chinese authorities have encouraged everyone to wear masks. Sensetime, an artificial intelligence firm has claimed that it has developed an algorithm that can detect people not wearing masks in public. According to CNBC, Chinese authorities have used drones telling people to wear masks!
The Chinese government has also enlisted the help of tech giants like Tencent, owner of popular messaging application WeChat and Alibaba subsidiary, Ant Financial, which runs payments app Alipay as well as large telecom companies to use their location based data of their users to track and map the movement of their subscribers. On both WeChat and Alipay, users can put in their Chinese ID numbers and where they have travelled. Users will then be assigned a QR code based on a traffic light color system which instructs them about how long they need to be in quarantine, or whether they are free to travel.
Zhengzhou is the first city in China to have set up facial recognition gates at all of its underground stations. Now, these cameras are being used alongside infrared temperature scanners to help contain the spread of the new coronavirus. The hi-tech cameras allow authorities to track and access a citizen’s travel history.
Moscow began using facial recognition technology in January this year as part of its city security surveillance program. Moscow is harnessing the power of facial recognition technology to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Technology is being used in Russia’s capital in an effort to dissuade people placed under quarantine from leaving their home or hotel. Approximately 2,500 people have been ordered to observe the quarantine after returning to Moscow from China. According to sources the city’s surveillance technology has been an effective tool when it comes to identifying and tracking down those who disobey orders to impose a self-quarantine.
However, as millions don masks across the country, the Chinese are discovering an unexpected consequence to covering their faces. It turns out that face masks trip up facial recognition-based functions, a technology necessary for many routine transactions in China. Suddenly, certain mobile phones, condominium doors, and bank accounts that work on face recognition technology won’t unlock with a glance. So, whereas, technology helps achieve certain goals, it could also prove to be a possible hindrance in others.
Till we meet next month,
Cheers, Stay Safe and Keep Others Safe.
G B Singh
Group Editor
Email: gbsingh@1stasset.org
Follow me on @EditorGB
Connect with me on Linkedin.com/in/gbsingh9
