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US-China tech war
This Week in AsiaGeopolitics

Exclusive | How the US plans to crack down on Chinese facial recognition tech used to ‘strengthen authoritarian governments’

  • A proposed bill reflects a broader campaign underway in the US to check the spread of Chinese tech
  • Hangzhou-based Hikvision, for example, has been criticised for its role in the detention and surveillance of the Uygur minority population in Xinjiang

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Surveillance cameras manufactured by Hikvision on a post at a testing station near the company’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China. Photo: Bloomberg
John Power
A United States senator is pushing to ban countries including China from an influential US government accuracy test of facial recognition technology, potentially opening up a new front in the escalating tech war between Washington and Beijing.

Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii has proposed the “End Support of Digital Authoritarianism Act” to bar companies from China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and other countries that consistently violate “internationally recognised human rights” from the Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT), which is widely considered the gold standard for determining the reliability of facial recognition software.

The results of the FRVT are regularly cited by firms as a measure of their credibility, and are referred to by businesses and policymakers when buying facial recognition technology.

Schatz’s bill, which is in the drafting stage, was in May sent to the Maryland-based National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which conducts the FRVT, to seek feedback.

The South China Morning Post obtained a copy of the bill via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the NIST, which operates under the US Department of Commerce, seeking documents addressing concerns associated with testing Chinese facial recognition technology.

Schatz, an increasingly influential figure within his party whose proposals have been embraced by Democratic presidential candidates, including Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

There are multiple steps before a bill goes to a vote at the House of Representatives and Senate, and according to GovTrack, a Washington-based website that tracks Congress, fewer than 5 per cent of bills become law.

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