China is developing a system that recognizes individuals by their body shape and walking movements. Systems that recognize human faces are already being used to identify people in crowds or as a secure way to unlock personal devices.
The new system, known as "gait recognition", is already on trial by police on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai. The Chinese technology company Watrix developed the system. The company announced last month that it had raised $ 14. 5 million to speed up the development and sale of the technology.
The system works in a similar way to face recognition. Cameras capture video of people in public places. Then, machines powered by artificial intelligence (Al) examine and study the video.
Facial recognition systems identify the shapes and expressions on a person's face to identify them. Gait recognition uses a person's body shape and their way of walking to identify them. The system records a person's shape and movements and then creates a model of the way they walk.
Huang Yongzhen is a former researcher who co-founded Watrix in 2016. He told the Associated Press his system can identify people from up to 50 meters away. It is designed to work even when a person's face is covered or hidden. Huang says his gait recognition system is correct 94 percent of the time. This is below the success rate of many face recognition systems. But he says the system can still be helpful to police and for other commercial purposes. He also believes the system can be effective when used together with face recognition.
Gait recognition is not new. The technology has been researched by scientists in Japan and Britain and by U. S. defense officials for about 10 years. But attempts to sell the technology have been slow. One of the reasons why the technology has not developed further is that the systems are more complex than facial recognition.
