Chinese Police Use Facial Recognition Glasses To Find Crooks

In central China police officers protecting the public have a new tool to catch criminals. Some officers are now wearing special facial recognition glasses with software that can search for criminals as people walk by. The glasses are being used at a railway station during the travel rush for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Officers wearing the glasses are stationed at the Zhengzhou East high-speed rail station in the Henan province. The use of the facial recognition glasses started at the beginning of the "chunyun" (translates to spring transport) period according to reports. This is an annual period of travel in China where people return to their hometown for the holiday.

By Tuesday of this week, the special glasses had helped police to identify seven fugitives that were related to hit-and-run and human trafficking. The glasses also spotted 26 cases of identity fraud. Officers wearing the special glasses are stationed at four entrances to the train station.

The glasses were specifically designed for police use and link to a tablet. Faces of passengers are scanned coming into the station and the software on the tablet then searches a database to match with suspects.

The railway station is heavily used with 70,000 to 120,000 people using it each day. There is no word on if the special glasses will remain in use after the holiday travel season or if they might be rolled out to more officers.

SOURCE: SCMP