China ranks as the worst country at collecting, using and storing biometric data
There’s growing concern among Chinese citizens over how their biometric data is used, but China has no law to protect it
Biometric security has become extremely common in China, where facial recognition is already ubiquitous in everyday life. But how well does China protect all this data it’s collecting on its citizens? Not very well, according to a new report.
Research from Comparitech shows China performing the worst in nearly every way at protecting biometric data. The report examines how 50 countries collect, use and store biometric data. China scored 24 out of 25, with higher scores indicating “extensive and invasive use of biometrics and/or surveillance”.
It also looks at how big a country’s biometric database is, how widely it deploys facial recognition-enabled surveillance cameras, whether people are required to submit biometric information when they enter the country and if biometrics are collected in the workplace.
China scores the highest in all categories except one: voting. China has a zero in this category because its tightly controlled voting system doesn’t require biometric data.
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Chinese police are also collecting DNA for what is now the world’s largest DNA database, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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With little protection in place, companies can easily gain access to large troves of personal biometric data, and data leaks are rampant.
Chinese media reported in September that nearly 170,000 items of facial data involving more than 2,000 faces were being sold online. The vendor said the data was either scraped from search engines or directly from an overseas software company’s database.
While China's rank on this list might not surprise many, other places among Comparitech’s top five worst offenders might not immediately spring to mind. India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan are all tied for fifth.
Malaysia and Pakistan come in second and third. The only one of the listed “worst countries” outside Asia is the US, which scored 20 out of 25 because of practices like biometrics in passports and no laws to protect biometric data.
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