China’s Baidu To Use AI To Identify People Not Wearing Face Masks

With the coronavirus outbreak still going on, many organizations and governments around the world have advised people to wear face masks to help prevent themselves from getting sick. However, over in China, it has become mandatory for people to wear masks in certain regions, especially when out in public areas like malls, restaurants, on public transport, and so on.

However, what if you don’t wear a mask? It will be hard to authorities to catch you out in public, but that’s where AI will be stepping in. Baidu will be launching an AI system in which it will help identify people who are walking about in public without face masks on. The company claims that its model has been trained on more than 100,000 images and has an accuracy of 96.5%.

The use of AI and facial recognition systems aren’t exactly new in China. The country has been more than happy to deploy such measures, where we have seen some success with them where authorities have actually managed to track down and arrest suspects who have evaded them through facial recognition systems.

Some might argue that it is a bit dystopian to be tracked in such a manner, but at the same time at the rate the virus is spreading, why wouldn’t anyone want to take extra precaution to keep themselves and others around them safe?

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: baidu, China, Coronavirus, covid-19, Health, Privacy