China Telecom’s new ad shows 5G aiding snoopy neighbors with facial recognition
A new ad from China Telecom has people thinking about how 5G makes surveillance easier
In 2017, a friend of mine moved into a new apartment in Beijing. After moving, an old lady stopped by to take a look. My friend didn’t think much of it at the time, but not long after she left, the police came knocking on his door.
This was no coincidence. This was the work of the so-called Chaoyang Masses. This group of elderly neighborhood volunteers named after Beijing's Chaoyang district is tasked with informing the police about suspicious behavior in exchange for rewards. And apparently China Telecom, one of the country's largest state-owned internet providers, wants people to know that 5G networks will make it even easier to snitch on their neighbors.
Why 5G isn't just faster video streaming on your smartphone
A new commercial from the telecom provider shows three neighborhood aunties idling on a street while a couple of suspicious-looking men walk together with a motorcycle. One of the eagle-eyed ladies takes out her phone and scans the men's faces, matching them with some kind of database. After the results are in, the ad’s heroine calls the cops with the tap of a button.
China Telecom told us that the application shown in the ad isn't real and that it has no plans to develop such an app. The ad was meant to demonstrate the high speeds and low latency of 5G technology, a spokesperson said.
WeChat, the app that does everything
But while the ad is fiction, the concept of the Chaoyang Masses app is very real. The real Chaoyang Chunzhong app doesn’t have facial recognition, but it’s made it easier for Beijing city to harness the power of snoopy old ladies through neighborhood committees, the smallest political unit of the Communist Party. Launched in 2017, it enables users to report missing people, lost-and-found items, suspects and vehicles.
The promise of 5G is that apps like this become much faster, possibly enabling new capabilities. That’s why depictions of how 5G tech can be used have sent shivers down spines before.
Although the next generation of connectivity will make video streaming and playing online games much faster, it is also likely to bring 5G-connected surveillance cameras and make it easier to cross-check faces with police databases.
The 5G glasses featured in the police chase video bear the logo of another Chinese state-owned telecommunications giant, China Mobile, but the company hasn’t confirmed involvement with the ad. However, both China Mobile and China Telecom have been working on similar police surveillance projects, including geeky-looking 5G glasses.
