Culture

TikTok Video Shows Woman Buying Drink From Vending Machine With Just Her Face – Ultra Convenience Or Dystopian Future?

#Tech
by

The future of cashless technology is on full display in a viral TikTok video where a woman purchases a drink from a vending machine using only her face. The video has many people praising the tech advancement as ultra-convenience while others warn that facial recognition could be what’s to come in a frightening dystopian future.

Chinese technology expert Matthew Brennan shared a TikTok video that shows a woman buying a drink from a vending machine by using facial recognition. She doesn’t use cash, credit card or her cell phone, she merely looks at the camera. The camera snaps a photo of her face and then unlocks the door to the refrigerator and she selects her drink.

In another video, a man attempts to use the face-recognizing vending machine, but it will not work for him.

“Non-Chinese are completely blocked from using China’s new facial recognition payment systems,” Brennan wrote on Twitter. “Error message Z6100: This account’s real-name verification is linked to a non-mainland China ID.”

China uses facial recognition in law enforcement as well as their social credit system. China’s Black Mirror-like social credit system uses mass surveillance and data analysis to rate citizens and assign them a social credit rating.

Your social credit score can be lowered by the Chinese government if you criticize the government, buy too many video games, buy too much junk food, purchase too much alcohol, post “fake news” online, visit unauthorized websites, walk your dog without a leash and have a friend who has a low credit score.

Could the communist Chinese government use facial recognition to not allow you to purchase alcohol or junk food if you have a low social credit score? What if your social credit score is so low, would they ban you from getting any food?

China already bars people with a poor social credit score from purchasing airline and train tickets. In July, the Chinese government “restricted 2.56 million discredited entities from purchasing plane tickets and 90,000 entities from buying high-speed rail tickets” according to Global Times.

Citizens of Hong Kong have been protesting China and are extremely worried about the nefarious ways the government could use facial recognition against them.

Residents of Hong Kong are extremely wary of China’s facial recognition. Earlier this month during protests, citizens used laser pointers to scramble facial recognition technology used by Chinese authorities.

Does it really take that long to use a credit card to buy a Four Loko?

[NextShark]