China to introduce face scans for mobile users

Dec 01, 2019 12:27 IST

People in China are now required to have their faces scanned when registering new mobile phone services under a new law, as the authorities seek to verify identities of the country's hundreds of millions of Internet users. The law, announced in September, comes into effect on Sunday. China already uses facial recognition technology to survey its population, but the government says it wants to 'protect the legitimate rights of citizens in cyberspace'. Under the new law, when signing up for new mobile connection, users will have their faces scanned in order to verify that they are a genuine match for the ID provided.