Posted on 03/23/2019 12:43:57 AM PDT by Steve Schulin
Table of Contents
Centralized Cashless Payments in China Facial Recognition to ‘Name and Shame’ Is Not Enough Push vs Pull Payments: Centralization vs Decentralization China Has Control Over Your Financial Sovereignty Like a scene from an Orwellian nightmare, authorities in Shenzhen China show where the future of centralized cashless payments is headed. And it isn’t pretty.
CENTRALIZED CASHLESS PAYMENTS IN CHINA
China is known for its high rate of technology adoption. Of the 2 billion or so smartphones around the world, two-thirds of them are in China.
Unlike most users in the West, Chinese smartphones are particularly popular for making instant cashless payments. Just about everyone accepts mobile payments, from small street vendors to homeless people.
Up until now, Chinese using WeChat Pay to make a purchase was completely at their will. But the Shenzhen traffic police are about to instantly extract fines from people’s WeChat accounts if they’re caught jaywalking.
Better than that? They’re using facial recognition technology to catch offenders and remove the fines automatically, no questions asked.
FACIAL RECOGNITION TO ‘NAME AND SHAME’ IS NOT ENOUGH
In Shenzhen, pedestrians who violate road rules are already named and shamed on giant LED screens. Traffic police use CCTV cameras backed by AI to single out jaywalkers. Their faces are also registered on a government website.
china wechat jaywalking shenzen
AI-enabled cameras are nothing new in China’s most progressive city. The technology was put in place in April 2018 and since then, almost 14,000 jaywalkers have had their faces plastered across the screen at a busy junction in the Futian district.
The Chinese authorities, it seems, really don’t want you crossing the road outside of a designated pedestrian area.
According to Wang Jun, Director of Marketing Solutions at AI firm Intellifusion, quoted in South China Morning Post, however, naming and shaming is not enough.
Jaywalking has always been an issue in China and can hardly be resolved just by imposing fines or taking photos of the offenders… But a combination of technology and psychology… can greatly reduce instances of jaywalking and will prevent repeat offenses. So, the Chinese traffic police will soon use a combination of facial recognition technology and instant fines by text.
Despite the margin for error (last year, a facial recognition system mistook a face on a bus for a jaywalker), the new system is moving ahead.
PUSH VS PULL PAYMENTS: CENTRALIZATION VS DECENTRALIZATION
Since the naming and shaming campaign began, the number of repeat offenders has reduced. Although Wang believes the only incentive strong enough to stop jaywalking completely is to hit people directly in their pockets.
wechat china
Intellifusion is currently in talks with popular Chinese social media platforms WeChat and Weibo. Not only will the jaywalker be notified by text, but their account will be debited some 20 minutes later. Their credit rating will also be affected if they pass a certain limit and violate the rules too many times.
If it sounds like a scene from an Orwellian society, that’s because this is exactly what this is. Big Brother China is showing the world where the future of centralized cashless payments is headed. And it isn’t pretty.
By going ahead and taking funds from violators’ accounts, they impose a ‘pull payment’ strategy, whereby the supplier simply takes the money from the account.
Now, contrast this to a decentralized financial system like Bitcoin, in which account holders send the funds (with their private key) and payments are ‘pushed’ onto the network.
CHINA HAS CONTROL OVER YOUR FINANCIAL SOVEREIGNTY
It’s been clear to the Chinese people for some time now that the authorities are watching them. But with this new initiative, the government will have access to pull payments from its citizens’ accounts, effectively controlling their financial sovereignty.
It’s not only Shenzhen that’s doing it, either. The Chinese are getting trigger-happy with facial recognition technology, with similar projects in Shanghai and Beijing.
What do you think about China’s automatic fines for jaywalking? Share your thoughts below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
Tags: bitcoin, Cashless, Centralized payments, facial recognition technology, Jaywalking, Shenzen, Wechat
BUMP.
I use cash for most of my transactions for the same reasoning. However, I do expect that one day, every printed dollar will have a cheap RFID tag in it and will be tracked at every transaction just like a credit card transition.
JoMa
No mention of the actual problem which is lack of freedoms (e.g. of capital). Bitcoin solves that quite differently and handily. It allows Chinese capital to flee the country. It's probably what creates most of the long term demand for cryptocurrencies in general.
All the new tech, cell phones, home security systems, banking, the internet etc are promoted to the public as the next best thing to have but the dark underside of all of this is they know where you are who you are and what you are doing at any given time. So in steps bitcoin, a cashless society, sounds great! Now they not only know your finances but the now have complete control over it. Google and other large corporations have been working with the government for years and is working hand in hand with China. Sez something
Bitcoin proved itself to be sufficiently insecure that you could lose everything
Lol! Sure it is.
The odd thing is that the “Thirdworldization” of our country (caused by importing people from sh!tholes) has just led my state of NJ to pass a law last week to require businesses to accept cash - the preferred method of our growing illegal population. I’ve always maintained cash will never disappear in the US (for this, among many other reasons); these schemes are tried where more homogenous people live, and they will fail there for the same reason.
China has become a nazi wet dream.
Better than that? They’re using facial recognition technology to catch offenders and remove the fines automatically, no questions asked. "
Sounds like a trick they might have copied from PayPal (so I've heard, anyway).
BitCoin is not freedom. Physical, tangible money is real freedom. BitCoin and other cryptocurrencies can vanish in an instant: just turn off the internet.
It will only get worse.
Soon, cashless payment systems may refuse your purchase because it is perceived as detrimental to you or society.
Maybe you want that 3rd drink at the bar but Apple, Google, Facebook, or the government says NO. Since they have a perpetual history of your purchases, perhaps that case of beer, or hamburger meat are beyond the “rules”, so no beer or meat for you. Try the kale display if you are hungry. Need some ammo? Not a chance based on your posts to Facebook & Twitter.
I’ve heard of folks losing all or most for three reasons only. The most frequent reason is that they put their Bitcoin in a wallet and can’t remember their password. I’ve seen estimates that 15-20% of the Bitcoins have been lost in this manner. The second way folks have lost is through theft from their accounts, mostly in accounts on exchanges. The third loss mechanism is buying high and selling low. None of these seem to warrant calling Bitcoin unsecure.
The Bitcoin blockchain is a very reliable record of transactions. I’ve never had trouble buying or selling Bitcoin. That some exchanges inflate their volume is good to understand, but why would that prompt anyone to disparage Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer payment advantage or the big difference between a currency which has a limit on how many coins can ever be created, compared to the lack of limits on creation of new dollars and other fiat currencies?
There are offline options for storing your Bitcoin. An Internet shutdown would surely complicate the use of Bitcoin, but I recall using multiple networks for information exchange before the Internet.
There are dozens of “hardware wallets” specifically designed to securely do just this. At least a couple I’ve seen also have deniable encryption built in - enter a wrong password and a fake or decoy “wallet” (think bank account) will be displayed.
The latter is going to become important as the government becomes bolder about forcing people to give up passwords. Already in the unfree nation of England you can be held in jail indefinitely for refusing this.
I do all the transactions I can by cash. It's a complete loss of freedom when one's financial transactions are tracked. And younger generations think it's the way it should be.
A cruise ship is a cashless society, except if you leave optional tips. I don't spend anything on board because of that. Amazing; it doesn't creep hardly anyone out.
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