Chinese Facial Recognition System Mistakes Face on Bus Ad for Jaywalker

We know that China is starting to rely more heavily on facial recognition systems but the tech is not, apparently, error-free.

The story that has been doing the rounds on Weibo and has been reported by Abacus News is about one of these systems that claimed a famous business woman was jaywalking after it caught her face as she crossed an intersection.

Her face was displayed on a large screen placed nearby with a text letting her know she had broken the law. The display listed not only her name but also part of her government ID.

Thing is, the woman was not even physically present – the facial recognition system simply picked up her features from an ad placed on the side of a bus.

The local police took to Weibo to admit the mistake and said that the record of the violation had since been deleted. In addition, the traffic police also stated that the system had received an upgrade that would prevent such errors from happening again.

The Chinese facial recognition systems set in place to monitor traffic and pedestrians have the ability to check the jaywalkers’ identities in real time but each city has a different way of dealing with the way their identities are being displayed: some cities do not show any personal information while others publicly display their names and parts of their government IDs.

The systems, installed in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen, have managed to capture tens of thousands of jaywalkers since they had been put into use.

But even with all the training they had so far, it seems that mistakes are unavoidable.