Gait!

November 10th, 2018| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

A new development in China. Another surveillance tool.

Gait recognition!

Yep, now software can identify you by your body shape and how you walk. Even when your face is hidden!

Police in Beijing and Shanghai have already deployed gait recognition as part of a larger drive to develop artificial-intelligence-driven surveillance and superintendence of the population.

Said Huang Yongzhen, the CEO of Watrix, a China-based artificial intelligence company:

Our system can identify people from up to 50 meters [165 feet] away, even with their back turned or face covered. You don’t need people’s cooperation for us to be able to recognize their identity. Gait analysis can’t be fooled by simply limping, walking with splayed feet or hunching over, because we’re analyzing all the features of an entire body.”

And thus, gait recognition fills a gap in identifying a person; facial recognition needs close-up, high-resolution images of a person’s face to be successful.

Of course, Chinese police are already using facial recognition to identify folks in crowds and even to nab jaywalkers. But this is taking people identification much further; another leap forward in camera surveillance.

In the province of Xinjian (aka “Chinese Turkestan”), in far northwest China, with a predominantly Muslim population (58%), security officials have expressed interest in the Watrix software. The population there is already subject to intense surveillance.

Chinese columnist and commentator Shi Shusi:

It is not surprising that such technology is catching on in China faster than the rest of the world: Beijing emphasizes social control. And using biometric recognition to maintain social stability and manage society is an unstoppable trend.”

It’s great business for Watrix. In October, the company announced that it had raised 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) to accelerate the development of their AI-employing devices.

And it’s only going to get better and more precise. Noted Mark Nixon, an expert on gait recognition from the University of Southampton in the U.K.:

It’s more complex than other biometrics, computationally. It takes bigger computers to do gait because you need a sequence of images rather than a single image.”

But, no question, with advancing technology, this is only going to improve.

Right now, it has a 94% accuracy rate. But in conjunction with face-scanning software, it might hit 100%!

Nixon again:

People still don’t recognize they can be recognized by their gait, whereas everybody knows you can be recognized by your face. We believe you are totally unique in the way you walk.”

The Bible knew that all along.

Once …

… you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Ephesians 2:1–2

But now our gait has changed.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10

We are to …

… walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.
Ephesians 4:1

And …

… walk by the Spirit.
Galatians 5:16

For …

… we walk by faith, not by sight.
2 Corinthians 5:7

So that …

… you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects
bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God
Colossians 1:10

In other words, we are to …

… walk in the same manner as He [Jesus] walked.
1 John 2:6

Let our new gaits give us a new identity!