Over in China, the country’s government has deployed certain hi-tech measures to track people in the country, such as by using facial recognition systems to identify wanted suspects who might still be at large. Now it looks like things will be getting harder for wanted criminals as authorities have recently begun to use a new method of surveillance: gait recognition.
In a report from AP, it appears that the Chinese authorities have adopted a new surveillance tool which can apparently identify individuals based on their gait (how they walk). According to Huang Yongzhen, the CEO of Watrix, the company who developed the system, the benefit of such a system is that it does not require the cooperation of the individual, such as requiring a warrant and so on.
“You don’t need people’s cooperation for us to be able to recognize their identity. Gait analysis can’t be fooled by simply limping, walking with splayed feet or hunching over, because we’re analyzing all the features of an entire body.” That being said, China isn’t the first or alone in their interest in the technology.
As AP points out, gait recognition technology has been researched by countries around the world, although there is some skepticism that people can be recognized simply by the way they walk. As expected, the technology doesn’t seem to sit well with privacy advocates, especially since there’s really no way to hide your walk, at least not as far as a long-term solution is concerned.