Why Is China Pushing Facial Recognition Adoption?

China is pushing facial recognition adoption in public housing programs to tackle the abuses of subletting. The country is taking every step to resolve the issues governing the tenancy abuse and looked upon the facial recognition-supported smart locks as a possible solution. This would mean that about 120,000 tenants in Beijing would be covered by the system before the first half of next year. Incidentally, several cities have already been depending on the facial scanning system.

Genuine Need

The authorities in Beijing believe that the integration of facial recognition with smart locks will not only curb unlawful subletting but also enhance the public security. The objective is to ensure that the limited housing resources are available to the genuine ones. At the same time, the move is also seen to keep a close watch on its citizen since several cities have face scanning cameras to get hold of jaywalkers. For instance, a park in Beijing installed toilet paper dispensers with face scanning cameras to discourage taking too much of time.

In Beijing, the facial recognition cameras have been installed in 47 public housing projects. The authorities have also collected more than100,000 face scans of both tenants and their family members. The system will deny any access to strangers since it could easily identify its tenants with the help of stored facial information. Aside from that, the system could also look out for aged residents, especially in the case of loners or senior citizen.

Prompt Automatically

Another key factor of the scanning system is that if any senior resident is out of their home for a long time than the normal case, then the system would alert the estate management to check in automatically. In major cities, affordable housing is a valuable thing, and at the end of March, Beijing has 100,000 units of public housing. These were given for low-income families for rental. While a public housing flat costs less than 2,000 yuan a month, the average monthly rental is about 5,000 yuan.

Beijing’s Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban Development will slap a five-year ineligibility ban if anyone found to be subletting the public housing through unlawful means. The city has been recording key information in its national credit system, and this will help to reach a conclusion. The latest move is part of its efforts to clamp down on the unlawful practice of subletting in recent months.