The system can verify people against their identity card
Casino destination Macau is requiring facial recognition and identification card checks for withdrawals made by Chinese UnionPay cardholders at all ATMs, as reported by Bloomberg.Customers who make a withdrawal from the updated cash machines will be asked to stare into a camera for six seconds so the facial-recognition software can verify them against their identity card.The move is a three-fold effort to reinforce Macau’s existing anti-money laundering rules, increase banking security, and enable China to try and dampen the outflows pushing down the value of its currency (which, last year, topped $816 billion). Casinos are a classic way to launder money, as individuals can withdraw significant amounts for chips, gamble very little, and then cash out to move the remainder.This follows Macau’s ban on proxy betting by telephone, which aimed to restrict bets from Chinese gamblers, and a limit on ATM withdrawals from 10,000 patacas to 5,000 patacas per transaction.The Macau Monetary Authority says the facial recognition software will initially be installed in China UnionPay’s existing 1,200 ATMs in Macau. Other payment providers, including Visa and Mastercard, will be required to adopt the technology at a later date....MORE
Ten years ago we were posting "An Opportunity for Wall St. in China’s Surveillance Boom" and "lǎo dà gē (Big Brother?) in China"
And the amazing thing, at least to me, is, as noted in the "Opportunity" post the British were (are?) ahead of the Chinese in keeping tabs on their citizens.
See also 2012's "Orwellian Irony in the Extreme" picture of the day:
Lifted in toto from Reason's Hit & Run blog:
Picture of the the day, courtesy the Twitter feeds of Libby Jackson, Soren Dayton, and Radley Balko.
I believe that is the plaque at 22 Portobello Road, Notting Hill, London rather than the more famous 50 Lawford Road, Kentish Town residence.
Back in 2007 the London Evening Standard did an article, "George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house" about a third place Orwell called home (green plaque):
The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - in the shadow of the author's former London home.
It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements is now here.
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Foresight: The cameras crowd George Orwell's former London home
According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.
Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell's fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London....
