Im April bloggte ich über Chinas neue Methoden der Überwachung der muslimischen Minderheit der Uighuren, damals fotografierten und vermaßen sie die Gesichter von über 1 Million Menschen in Gefangenenlagern, um die AIs ihrer Gesichtserkennungs-Algorithmen auf äußerliche Merkmale dieser Minderheit zu trainieren.
Nun kommt raus: Die chinesische Polizei nimmt den Gefangenen auch Blut ab, analysieren die DNA, versuchen aus diesen DNA wiederum, Gesichter zu rekonstruieren. Man vermutet, dass China in Zukunft diese aus Blutproben generierten Gesichter in eine Face-Detection-Datenbank speisen könnte. Extrem gruselige. Die Chinesen praktizieren da ihre eigene Form von Fake-Wissenschaften und eine neue Art von phrenologischer Rassenlehre, die mit Gesichtserkennung und künstlicher Intelligenz Eigenschaften im Menschen ausmachen will und dazu genutzt wird, um Minderheiten zu verfolgen.
NYTimes: Chinese scientists are trying to find a way to use a DNA sample to create an image of a person’s face.
Twitter-Thread von NYTimes-Journalist Paul Mozur: In Xinjiang, Chinese police are using the blood and faces of an oppressed minority to craft dystopian technologies that may not even work
With a million or more ethnic Uighurs and others from predominantly Muslim minority groups swept up in detentions across Xinjiang, officials in Tumxuk have gathered blood samples from hundreds of Uighurs — part of a mass DNA collection effort dogged by questions about consent and how the data will be used.
In Tumxuk, at least, there is a partial answer: Chinese scientists are trying to find a way to use a DNA sample to create an image of a person’s face.
The technology, which is also being developed in the United States and elsewhere, is in the early stages of development and can produce rough pictures good enough only to narrow a manhunt or perhaps eliminate suspects. But given the crackdown in Xinjiang, experts on ethics in science worry that China is building a tool that could be used to justify and intensify racial profiling and other state discrimination against Uighurs.
In the long term, experts say, it may even be possible for the Communist government to feed images produced from a DNA sample into the mass surveillance and facial recognition systems that it is building, tightening its grip on society by improving its ability to track dissidents and protesters as well as criminals.
Banksys Streetart for the Homeless of Birmingham