China’s facial recognition mania now extends to public housing and trash cans – so watch your step

China’s sprawling use of facial recognition technology has now stretched to trash cans and public housing as the country continues to embrace the controversial yet extremely efficient mode of identification.

Beijing authorities are currently trialling a face-scanning system in several residential neighbourhoods to supervise a nascent garbage sorting programme after kicking off a project to stem illegal subletting of government-funded flats earlier this year.

The developments come amid rising resistance to the frictionless identification technology in many western countries, with Oakland recently joining San Francisco as US cities that have banned use of the technology by municipal authorities amid privacy concerns. A legal challenge has also been mounted in the UK against use of the tech by police, on the grounds that it constitutes an unlawful violation of privacy.

In Beijing, an automated entrance gate with face-scan tech has been installed in the first batch of 13 public rental housing communities, according to state-owned Xinhua news agency. By the end of October, the new system is expected to cover all 59 neighbourhoods.

The face-scanning feature is aimed at ensuring security and “fairness” where rent is only half of that in neighbouring areas for non-public housing, said supplier Uniview, a Hangzhou-based surveillance camera giant, in a social media post last week.