To make our "face" safer, six CPPCC members suggested strengthening facial recognition supervision

　　A video showing a pair of glasses unlocking 19 mobile phones has gone viral. Is facial recognition still safe?

　　With the widespread application of face recognition technology, more and more things in life can be solved by face recognition. While face recognition technology makes life more convenient, it also brings many security risks.

　　"At present, the abuse of facial recognition technology is quite common. The abuse of facial recognition technology exists to varying degrees in shopping malls, scenic spots, office buildings and other places, and the public often has their facial information collected without knowing it." On March 4, Cai Xiaohong, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and researcher at the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with reporters.

　　In order to standardize the application of facial recognition technology and prevent the risk of personal information leakage, Cai Xiaohong, together with six other members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, including Ye Youda, a researcher at the National Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Zhou Yumei, deputy director of the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, jointly proposed a proposal and put forward a number of suggestions on strengthening facial recognition supervision.

　　It’s time to pay attention to facial recognition security issues

　　At present, my country's facial recognition technology is developing rapidly. It is estimated that the scale of my country's facial recognition market has grown at an average annual rate of 50% in recent years and is expected to exceed 50 billion yuan by 2021.

　　However, human faces are unique, directly identifiable, convenient, unchangeable, changeable, easy to collect, non-anonymous, and multidimensional, which determines the particularity and complexity of face recognition technology. "Once facial information is illegally stolen and cannot be changed or replaced, it is very likely to cause risks in many aspects such as science and technology ethics, public safety and law, and endanger the personal and property safety of the public," said Cai Xiaohong.

　　In June 2020, the Fuyang District of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province opened a trial for the "first Chinese facial recognition case", which quickly triggered continuous discussions among all sectors of society about facial recognition technology and personal privacy protection; in November 2020, a short video of a man wearing a helmet to view a house became popular on the Internet, and the orange-yellow font above the video read "To protect personal information, wear a helmet to view the house", which sparked heated discussions; in Nanning, Guangxi, many owners encountered incidents of their houses being transferred after scanning their faces, which further triggered security concerns behind facial recognition.

　　"There are growing calls in China to pay attention to the security issues of facial recognition. Massive amounts of facial recognition biometric data are collected in various scenarios. In the absence of perfect relevant regulatory systems and regulations, many institutions that collect facial information do not have the corresponding risk prevention and control capabilities and security assurance mechanisms. There is an urgent need to strengthen supervision of facial recognition," said Cai Xiaohong.

　　Add approval procedures for the application of facial recognition products

　　Therefore, the six members suggested that the relevant systems and regulations for facial recognition supervision should be improved, the formulation of laws and regulations on personal information protection should be accelerated, basic rights such as the right to control, delete, and be forgotten personal image data should be established, and personal reputation and privacy should be protected; the relevant legislation on big data should be accelerated, the rights and obligations of enterprises in the collection, transmission, storage and use of personal image data should be clarified, and the main security responsibilities of all links in the data life cycle should be implemented; relevant standards and management methods for biometric information should be formulated to ensure the safe and standardized use of personal image data, and clarify the application areas of facial recognition.

　　At the same time, a network and information security supervision system for facial recognition will be established, the formulation of a facial recognition application technology standard system will be accelerated, and the security technical requirements for facial recognition software and hardware applications will be clarified; a security assessment and review system for facial recognition applications will be established, and security assessments will be conducted for different application fields such as security, finance, e-commerce, and payment. Approval procedures will be added to the application and promotion of facial recognition products to ensure that the products meet safety and technical requirements.

　　More importantly, we will increase penalties on companies that illegally collect, leak and abuse personal privacy and engage in unfair competition, and urge them to fulfill their primary responsibility for security.

　　In terms of promoting the innovation and healthy development of facial recognition technology, they suggested that, focusing on the construction of key projects such as the promotion of smart security, basic identity authentication platforms for multiple biometrics, smart finance, and smart transportation, we should promote the research and development of core facial recognition technologies, promote the deep integration of facial recognition with information technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, and develop a variety of facial recognition products; promote cooperation between facial recognition companies and network security companies, and carry out research and development of network security technologies for facial recognition; encourage joint innovation between companies and scientific research institutions, promote the application and promotion of facial recognition technology results; and cultivate new forms of facial recognition development.