Confidential documents reveal that Huawei was developing a 'Uighur alarm' in collaboration with Chinese AI giant Megvii
China's telecommunications equipment giant
Huawei / Megvii Uyghur Alarms
https://ipvm.com/reports/huawei-megvii-uygur
Huawei tested AI software that could recognize Uighur minorities and alert police, report says --The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/08/huawei-tested-ai-software-that-could-recognize-uighur-minorities-alert-police-report-says/
Research group IPVM reported on December 8, 2020 that Huawei and Megvii were developing a Uighur tracking system using facial recognition technology, a joint investigation with the Washington Post revealed.
Huawei and Megvii jointly added a face recognition system to the confidential document ' (PDF file) Huawei Video Cloud Solution and Megvii Dynamic Face Recognition Interoperability Test Report ' obtained by IPVM on January 8, 2018. It was stated that it was being developed and that Megvii's face recognition system verified by Huawei included a 'Uighur alarm' that tracks Uighurs as a basic function.
The report also reports that Megvii's system has succeeded in determining 'ethnicity' as well as age and gender by attribute analysis using facial recognition.
This report is said to be a 'confidential document', but according to the Washington Post, it was published on Huawei's site, which can be found by Google search. However, it was removed from Huawei's site shortly after the Washington Post and IPVM asked Huawei for comment.
According to the Washington Post, Huawei and Megvii have confirmed that the report is genuine. However, Huawei told us, 'This report is for testing purposes only and is not used in the real world. Huawei covers the legal systems of all countries and regions in which it operates. We only provide products and solutions that comply with industry regulations and meet industry regulations, 'and denied the use of' Uighur alarms. '
Megvii also told IPVM, 'Our solution is not designed or customized to target or label ethnic groups. Our business is to monitor a specific group of people. It focuses on personal well-being and safety, not on personal well-being. '
Meanwhile, Maya Wang of human rights group Human Rights Watch told The Washington Post, 'China is increasingly monitoring AI and is tracking ethnic minorities and protesters as a national threat. And China's surveillance technology will go beyond the persecution of ethnic minorities in the country and will be used in other countries that want to turn minorities into criminals. ' Not only that, he said that it is spreading all over the world.
In China, where the residents of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region are being cracked down, it has long been pointed out that ' technology such as AI and facial recognition technology is being used to monitor Uighurs.' Therefore, in October 2019, the U.S. government named 28 companies and organizations including Megvii as 'involved in the Chinese government's surveillance of ethnic minorities such as Uighurs using high-tech equipment and human rights violations.' And took steps to add it to the blacklist banning transactions with domestic companies.
Why did the US add Chinese surveillance camera and facial recognition technology companies to the blacklist? --GIGAZINE
The Huawei and Megvii reports also stated that the NVIDIA Tesla P4 GPU was used and that 'NVIDIA Tesla P4 can effectively accelerate the acceleration of deep learning algorithms.' IPVM is asking NVIDIA to comment on this, but hasn't heard back at the time of writing.
After scrutinizing the report by Huawei et al., IPVM 'more clearly proves that the joint development of'Uighur alarm'by Huawei and Megvii is deeply involved in the suppression of Uighurs by many Chinese tech companies. Anyone involved with these companies should keep this in mind. '
Related Posts:
