Huawei Tested Facial Recognition Technology to Identify Uyghurs in China and Alert the Police

Sieeka Khan, Tech Times 09 December 2020, 06:12 am

Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, has tested an artificial intelligence software that could identify Uyghur minorities. The AI would then alert the government authorities.

Huawei's new AI

The Washington Post viewed an internal company document that was signed by Huawei representatives that showed it worked with a facial recognition startup called Megvii back in 2018. It was to test an AI-powered camera system that could scan faces and the system could guess a person's ethnicity, age and other factors.

Megvii could set off an alarm once it recognizes an Uyghur. Uyghurs are a group of minorities where most are Muslims. They have been subjected to prosecution and is placed on camps by the Chinese government.

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The internal company document was posted on the website of Huawei and it was removed immediately after The Washington Post and the research group IPVM requested a comment about the AI.

The camera system of Megvii can take real-time photos of people and it can replay video footage when a face belonging to an Uyghur was identified.

Business Insider reached out to Huawei for comments regarding the new technology, but Glenn Schloss, the Huawei spokesman, told the news outlet that the document was a test and it has not been applied yet. He added that Huawei does not give custom algorithms or even applications.

The prosecution of Uyghurs in China

Since 2016, China has detained more than 1 million Uyghurs in internment camps, which is often called by the Chinese government as reeducation camps.

Uyghurs are native to Xinjiang, China, which is an autonomous region in the northwest part of the country. Officials at the camps is said to force the Uyghurs to abandon their culture and to fully adopt Chinese customs, like learning how to speak Mandarin.

The alleged inhumane activities in the camps have spread all around the world, as reports of torture, forced labor, assault and medical experiments on prisons were reported, all while teaching Chinese propaganda. The Chinese government has also been accused for forcefully sterilizing Uyghur women.

Meanwhile, the Chinese authorities justified their actions by claiming that Uyghurs are terrorists and religious extremists. The government has been using surveillance tools to monitor the minority group. This includes installing thousands of cameras in Xinjiang to identify them and by spying on them through their phones.

According to The Washington Post, the report no raises the questions of how AI can be used by world leaders to carry out inhumane practices and to fuel their personal agendas.

International human rights activists, democratic nations and even Pope Francis have condemned China's actions against the minorities. The human rights groups have called out Huawei aiding China and other countries in its plan to oppress minority groups.

In July 2020, the UK stated that they are considering sanctioning China due to the egregious human rights violations happing in the camps, according to the BBC.

Megvii was also one of the few Chinese companies to be sanctioned by the US Commerce Department back in 2019 over its contribution to China's prosecution of Uyghurs and other minorities in the country.