-Lance Wang, General Manager of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Macau at YITU Technology, Ang Chin Tah, Director of Infocommunications and Media, Singapore Economic Development Board and Lin Chenxi, Co-Founder, YITU Technology https://www.asiaone.com/business/yitu-technology-opens-first-international-office-in-singapore
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7-18-18 Shanghai-based facial recognition firm Yitu Technology has secured another $100 million. In 2017 Chinese startups received 48% of all AI investment worldwide, surpassing the US for the first time. Additionally over 900 patents relating to facial recognition were filed in the country during the same period. …
According to Yitu’s website, public security bureaus in Xiamen, Wuhan, Suzhou and Ningbo make use of their Dragonfly Eye identification system….It then received $56,4 million in Series C investment from Hillhouse Capital (offices in NYC, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai) Sequoia Capital (hq Menlo Park) and YF Capital (hq Shanghai), among others in 2017. https://technode.com/2018/07/18/yitu-series-c-funding/
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2-18-19 Facial recognition companies are leaders among the ranks of artificial intelligence startups attracting major investments totaling $1.63 billion in total funding, according to a CB Insights study reported by the Wall Street Journal. https://www.biometricupdate.com/201902/face-biometrics-startups-lead-ai-sector-in-attracting-major-investment
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The police are now using facial recognition technology to target Uighurs in wealthy eastern cities like Hangzhou and Wenzhou and across the coastal province of Fujian, said two of the people. Law enforcement in the central Chinese city of Sanmenxia, along the Yellow River, ran a system that over the course of a month this year screened whether residents were Uighurs 500,000 times.
Police documents show demand for such capabilities is spreading. Almost two dozen police departments in 16 different provinces and regions across China sought such technology beginning in 2018, according to procurement documents. Law enforcement from the central province of Shaanxi, for example, aimed to acquire a smart camera system last year that “should support facial recognition to identify Uighur/non-Uighur attributes.”…
“If originally one Uighur lives in a neighborhood and within 20 days six Uighurs appear,” CloudWalk said on its website, “it immediately sends alarms” to law enforcement….The Chinese A.I. companies behind facial recognition software include Yitu, Megvii, SenseTime and CloudWalk, which are each valued at more than $1 billion….The companies’ valuations soared in 2018 as China’s Ministry of Public Security, its top police agency, set aside billions of dollars under two government plans called Skynet and Sharp Eyes to computerize surveillance, policing and intelligence collection. …
The A.I. companies have taken money from major investors. Fidelity International (hq Bermuda) and Qualcomm Ventures
(hq San Diego) were a part of a consortium that invested $620 million in SenseTime. Sequoia invested in Yitu. Megvii is backed by Sinovation Ventures, the fund of the well-known Chinese tech investor Kai-Fu Lee….
One national database stores the faces of all Uighurs who leave Xinjiang, according to two of the people. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-racial-profiling.html
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4-25-2019 The amendments extend Sisi's current term for two more years and allow him to run for another six-year term in 2024 while also giving him more power over the judiciary and the military a greater role in politics….
Critics of the process have also noted that the referendum came only 72 hours after parliament approved the amendments, depriving Egyptians of a chance to read and understand the changes before voting on them….
In the days prior to the referendum, shopkeepers, business owners, restaurant proprietors and members of elite families from various parts of the country told MEE that security officials had coerced them into hanging posters backing the amendments--and paying money for the banners on top of this.
The banners, according to multiple sources, are part of a campaign engineered by Nation's Future, a political party widely believed to be affiliated with Egyptian intelligence and formed in the wake of the 2013 coup. It now wields the second-largest number of seats in parliament.
Meanwhile in the run-up to the vote the state blocked more than 34,000 websites in an attempt to restrict an opposition-led campaign to rally Egyptians against the amendments, which activists and rights groups say will only further enshrine military rule in the country. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/incomprehensible-analysts-cast-doubt-egypt-referendums-high-turnout
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-mt. shasta
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