China – whose controversial social credit system appears to be a blueprint of what’s to come – has ramped up its social tyranny.

While Western politicians call for more internet censorship, and, while freedom at large is increasingly attenuated; China will now require its citizens to pass a facial recognition test beginning December 1st to gain access to the internet.

Chinese citizens wishing to access the internet on their phones must pass a facial recognition according to their social credit score.

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The Chinese government has been developing sophisticated facial recognition software to roll out as part of their controversial social credit system.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology says that the new software will be used to combat terrorism and enhance internet security.

Twenty million hi-tech security cameras have been installed in China since 2017.

The Daily Mail reports:

At present, a Chinese citizen will need to show his or her ID card while applying for a landline or the internet. The facial-recognition test is set to verify that the ID card belongs to the applicant. The directive was issued by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology late last month. The Ministry claimed the move would help improve the country’s internet security and combat terrorism. Chinese citizens are also banned from re-selling their SIM cards by the regulation to prevent unregistered users from making calls from mobile phones. China has been building the world’s largest facial-recognition surveillance system.

There are around 626 million operational CCTV cameras in China.

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The recent Hong Kong protests have given rise to interesting techniques to circumvent facial recognition software, such as Pepe The Frog face paint.

Silicon Valley has been embroiled in two scandals surrounding China’s infamous social credit system: first, Google was caught assisting the Chinese government; second, Silicon Valley was found attempting to create an extra-legal social credit system of their own.