Did you think we had facial recognition in the soup? That's because you don't know the latest fashion in China. The Beijing government has begun to use this type of technology for the Garbage collection, so if a waste drum does not know you... forget about throwing away your bags.
Facial recognition to throw away the trash
Managing an overpopulation like that of Beijing must be tremendously complicated, so it is normal for the city government to use certain technologies that help it better manage its resources. The latest occurrence in this sense by the top leaders of the Chinese city has been to use the facial recognitionl to take it to a place you would never imagine: the garbage cans.
What you have read Residents of 13 Beijing suburbs (expected to number nearly 60 soon) have been forced to scan and register their faces in some new drums installed in the vicinity of their houses with the aim that only they can use and throw the garbage in said containers. As you can see in the video that you have a few lines below, the structures have small cameras integrated between door and door, which are responsible for reading the face of the person interested in throwing away their rubbish. If it recognizes the face, the drum opens so the bag can be thrown away; if not, it remains completely closed with no possibility to use it.
There are several reasons for which the government has decided to take this measure. Firstly, with facial recognition and zone limitation, manages better use of drums, making sure that only the residents of an urbanization (or several selected ones) make use of the containers. With this, in addition (and here goes the second reason) an illegal practice that is currently on the rise in the city is avoided, the relet of apartments, since only the official owner and occupants of a house will be in the database - illegal tenants will therefore not be able to litter, which should certainly persuade them not to do this type of graft.
Facial recognition also allows encourage recycling: users receive prizes for making correct use of the drums. In this way, the smart containers automatically weigh the garbage bags -next to them is a bag vending machine with QR codes badges - and assign the person who dropped them gift credits (which could be food) or even cash refunds. Of course, in the same way that good behavior is rewarded, bad behavior is also reprimanded, so that those who do not classify their waste correctly will be identified (it is unknown at the moment if they receive any type of penalty).
As well indicated in AbacusNews, while in the West there are more and more debates about the use of facial recognition and the privacy of people, in China it is a booming technology that is sneaking into more and more sectors and areas of daily life (in plain sight). The privacy thing and if we discuss that another day...