Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

afp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 202 posts

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#21

Post by z2 »

tanilama wrote: post #5

Does this affect foreigners? If I have a AT&T plan, it should work out-of-box in China via roaming? Hope that is the case...

Always roam when in China for short trips. The way cellular networks work is that roaming plans tend to route back home, so that your access is unfiltered.

The plan could affect foreigners but it was hard for years already, in that most cellular stores require a Chinese ID to register monthly service (not all take passports). I used to get the salesperson or security guard to lend their ID in my stead, and this is exactly what this policy seems designed to prevent. Hotels and train stations have operated under facial authentication for a couple of years too for Chinese nationals. This seems to be along the same vein, to ensure the person is who the ID says they are. In other words, it's handing over the ID-checking from a person to an awkward police-sanctioned box.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#22

Post by eznoonze »

givinguflac wrote: post #3

When I was younger I wanted to visit China. Currently I have no plans to ever do so, China is a scary country.

There is a saying like this: if you want to see Tang dynasty, you go to Japan. Sung Dynasty you go to South Korea.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#23

Post by corporate_shi11 »

oefrha wrote: post #18
corporate_shi11 wrote: post #2

When a nation is a superpower, it is able to influence the behavior of weaker states. It will exert its influence for a variety of reasons, but it is inevitable that with power comes the exertion of influence. China will use its power to prop up autocratic regimes across the world and export its technology and methods to make such autocracy possible and sustainable. China represents a threat to global democracy which…

I can think of another superpower that’s been propping up “democratic” regimes across the world, not hypothetically, but for decades. (Apparently dang won’t like this comment, and rightly so, so this will be my last comment on this thread.)

America has been a champion for real democracies across the world for decades. It has propped up autocracies in the past, but those pale in comparison to its global support for democracy.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#24

Post by classichasclass »

Not that there's any moral equivalence, but when I'm in Australia visiting in-laws, I have to provide my passport or similar ID to get my PAYG SIM activated. I just have them swipe it at the airport and my SIM is on in 10 minutes. My wife admits it's a lot easier in the States to get a PAYG SIM; AT&T doesn't care who she is as long as there's money in the account.

I'm not sure why Australia does that, but it's really annoying.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#25

Post by aplummer »

classichasclass wrote: post #24

Not that there's any moral equivalence, but when I'm in Australia visiting in-laws, I have to provide my passport or similar ID to get my PAYG SIM activated. I just have them swipe it at the airport and my SIM is on in 10 minutes. My wife admits it's a lot easier in the States to get a PAYG SIM; AT&T doesn't care who she is as long as there's money in the account. I'm not sure why Australia does that, but it's really…

It's to track crimes associated with burner sims.

* Not trying to justify it either direction.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#27

Post by gregimba »

Traveling to Germany I had to provide my passport to get a SIM card. When I was going through customs stateside I had a photo taken with my passport. Not sure if this is the new standard but other countries are implementing the same laws/procedures and while I disagree with china we shouldn't hold them to a different standard than other nations.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#29

Post by jariel »

CalChris wrote: post #19

Are we any different? I want to think so but drivers licenses and passports are scanned photos. The California DMV even sells this information.

Yes, 'we' are very objectively very different. The motivations, objectives and operational realities of DL's and Passports are all fundamentally different. Even the DMV's sale of data, however unseemly, is in a different category of 'questionable'. The most interesting artefact here is not the difference between the systems, but popular notions of moral equivalence among intelligent people.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#30

Post by kiba »

braythwayt wrote: post #16
corporate_shi11 wrote: post #2

When a nation is a superpower, it is able to influence the behavior of weaker states. It will exert its influence for a variety of reasons, but it is inevitable that with power comes the exertion of influence. China will use its power to prop up autocratic regimes across the world and export its technology and methods to make such autocracy possible and sustainable. China represents a threat to global democracy which…

Without agreeing or disagreeing with them, we should accept that people have said exactly the same things about the USA, about the Soviet Union, about Russia, about Britain... And on and on. I am not trying to play “whatabout,” but I do ask: Is there anything different about China’s behaviour as a superpower? Or are we just seeing a shift in which superpowers have world influence? At the moment I write this, the fron…

US schools is about certain school districts, not national policies.
Post reply on HN