Researchers have created a machine that they claim can tell if a person is a convicted criminal simply from their facial features.

The artificial intelligence, created at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was able to correctly identify criminals from a selection of 186 photos nine out of 10 times by assessing their eyes, nose and mouth.

The findings add support to an often-discredited view that criminals have particular facial features, suggesting that the structure of someone's face, including "lip curvature, eye inner corner distance, and the so-called nose-mouth angle", can identify criminality.

It would be highly controversial if applied, but raises fears that China could add such information to its surveillance capabilities, which already include a dossier on almost everyone called dang'an. The files, collected since the Mao era, contain personal and confidential information such as health records and school reports.