Chinese Companies Uses Zimbabwe as Sample Test Subject for Face Recognition Project

Chinese tech companies are using Zimbabwe as a sample test subject for an AI face recognition project. The project will enable companies to develop an AI solution that can track and identify black people.

The project started after Zimbabwe signed a partnership with Zte to use its citizen data for facial research.

ZTE will use the data it got to improve facial recognition algorithms and enhance recognition accuracy for black people.

Moreso, a deal between the Zimbabwe government and CloudWalk, will make Zimbabwe send data of million African faces to the company to help train the technology.

This data and the stride to create facial recognition accuracy have made Chinese tech titans call for a change in the United Nation’s International Telecommunication Union.

ZTE and Behemoth are leading a new ITU proposal that requires companies to store detected facial features in a database. The database will have information that can be used to identify a person like race, skin color, facial curvature, and other demographic features. The data will also be used to conduct video monitoring and surveillance of vehicles.

The partnership and use of Zimbabwean data have, however, raised major concerns in the global sphere. The concern includes the increasing power of China to influence the ITU and the poor decision of the African Continent.

We are unsure if this facial data collection will benefit Zimbabwe or the country will be at the losing end?

It is, however, pertinent to state that the partnership continues to reveal Africa’s failure to make the right decision. The continent is also at the receiving end of the pendulum.