Chinese authorities have imposed a new law that requires face scans of people signing up for new cellphone plans in China, as the country welcomes the adoption of artificial intelligence and facial-recognition technology.
Approved on Sunday, telecom operators are now mandated to collect face scans when registering users of new phones at stores across the country.
A source has been cited by news agency Agence France Presse from the government-owned telecoms giant China Unicom as saying the "portrait matching" requirement would mean that people registering a new phone a number is required to record themselves blinking and moving their heads.
The new rule was introduced in September by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to protect "mobile citizens' legitimate rights and interests."
"Mobile subscribers are already required to show a form of identification while signing up for new telecommunications contracts, but face scans will now be used to confirm that the user is a true match to their ID," infotech officials said.
"It's a little too much," one user commented on Weibo, China's version of social media platform, Twitter. "Command, then more command," another wrote, according to AFP.
For years, the Chinese government has tried to match online users with their true identities to prevent online fraud and monitor political posts. Social media firms were forced to roll out real-name registration almost 10 years ago.
While Beijing insists the latest measure will boost cybersecurity and cut cyber fraud, privacy groups see face scans as another example of China's leaders trying to keep an eye on its own people.
Facial recognition technology has been quite popular among the Chinese tech wizards, with Beijing aiming to install 400 million new surveillance cameras by 2020.
Now, the devices are used to detect jaywalkers, track the presence of staff and screen individuals accessing residential and government buildings.
The new face scan plan corresponds with the emergence of artificial intelligence and the launch of the new social credit system in Beijing, under which each person is rated according to their behavior. Similar private databases for blacklisting were also set up.
The increasing concern of facial recognition last month triggered one of China's first lawsuits on the subject. According to the local court, a Chinese professor filed a lawsuit against a safari park in Hangzhou, eastern Zhejiang province, requesting face scans for entry.
According to the law professor, the shift from a fingerprint entry system to a facial-recognition was a breach of his consumer rights.
