Fugitive goes to concert, gets caught by face recognition cams

While China’s super sophisticated facial recognition software has been making headlines across the globe, one fugitive was apparently unaware of the surveillance system, leading him to attend a Jacky Cheung concert in Nanchang on Saturday night.

Only about 30 minutes after the “God of Songs” began singing, the suspect found himself being plucked out of the vast sea of audience members in the stands by police.

The 31-year-old man surnamed Ao had been placed on the police watch list for unspecified economic crimes. When he entered the arena, which seats 70,000, he was spotted by face scanning cameras.

Police say in a Knews video report that Ao was extremely surprised when he was apprehended, believing that he was surely safe among the massive crowd. He had gone to the concert with his wife and some friends.

Sitting in jail, Ao says that if he had known about China’s face recognition system, he would have stayed home instead.

While China already has some 170 million CCTV cameras, it’s looking to install another 400 million or so in the next three years. These cameras will be able to match your ID card with your face and your face with your car, tracking your movements back one week, recording all of the people that you came into contact with.

The network is targeted at not only preventing crime, but predicting it before it happens.

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