As you might have heard, China is going big on facial recognition where they are equipping police officers with smart glasses that come with facial recognition tech. In fact it seems that their efforts are paying off because according to reports, Chinese police have managed to nab a suspect using the technology.
What makes this even more amazing was that the facial recognition technology was used during a Jacky Cheung concert attended by at least 60,000 people. This means that the tech is good enough to pinpoint the suspect, a 31-year old who was wanted for “economic crimes”. According to the reports, the suspect was said to be in “shock” when he got caught, which we can only imagine wasn’t what he had expected.
The suspect was identified by cameras at the concert’s ticket entrance and apprehended by police after he had sat down. According to Mr Li from Honggutan police station in Nanchang city, “He didn’t think the police would be able to catch him from a crowd of 60,000 so quickly.” The suspect was also later caught on footage where he was quoted as saying in police custody that had he known, he would not have attended the concert.
This isn’t the first time that facial recognition has been successfully used to arrest wanted criminals. Last year it was also used in the Shandong province where police arrested 25 suspects using the system that was setup at a beer festival.