Chinese police have used facial recognition to identify and capture two fugitives at two different Jacky Cheung (张学友) performances (in Chinese), one in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province in May and one in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province in April. Jacky Cheung is a Hong Kong celebrity, once called Hong Kong’s “God of Songs” and grouped with other celebrities such as Andy Lau and Aaron Kwok.
In both cases, the fugitives’ faces were caught during the security check and were later apprehended by local police. These two cases follow Chinese police using facial recognition technology to catch an escaped criminal who was traveling to Wuzhen, using Baidu-made face-recognition cameras installed across the town last October.
Read more: A year in constant review: China’s surveillance breakthroughs in 2017
China is now using facial recognition technology more and more in crowded areas such as concert halls, airports and even along the streets of tourist attractions. The Chinese government has been working on implementing a national system that could use surveillance cameras to identify any one of China’s 1.3 billion people within 3 seconds and with at least 88% accuracy since 2015.