Sunglasses put suspects on the spot

Chinese police are using sunglasses equipped with facial recognition technology to spot criminal suspects.

The glasses, which are being used at a busy train station ahead of the Chinese New Year travel rush, are linked to a central database that contains details of criminal records.

Police can reportedly view an individual’s personal details, including name, ethnicity, gender and address, almost instantly.

At the Zhengzhou East railway station, police have arrested seven people suspected of being involved in kidnapping and hit-and-run cases during an operation that began last week. They have also held 26 people with fake identification cards.

The sunglasses have a small camera attached on the right-hand lens, connected by an electronic lead to a hand-held device, loaded with an app where officers can process images of suspicious individuals. The facial information captured by the glasses will be sent back to a database, Zhang Xiaolei, a police official told the Global Times. The app allows access to the database that also provides information on whether the suspect is on the run from police, and even their recent internet history.

China is deploying new technologies to monitor people in ways that would unnerve many in the West. Facial recognition has been rolled out in many aspects of everyday life in the country.