Report from a massive Chinese surveillance tech expo, where junk-science "emotion recognition" rules

Sue-Lin Wong is the Financial Times's South China reporter; this week, she attended the China Public Security expo, the country's largest surveillance tech show, held biannually in Shenzhen.

In a ghastly and fascinating Twitter thread, Wong provides a tour of a few of the most noteworthy elements of the expo (though she notes that "The expo was utterly overwhelming, I must have only seen a fraction of it").

A major trend from the show is "emotion recognition" -- a junk-science infused buzzword that is heavily marketed by "AI" companies both inside and outside China.

My other big takeaway from Wong's writeup is that surveillance tech has found niches in every domain of human life: from street-level surveillance to education to the electric grid to health to criminal justice.

I was also fascinated by Wong's photos of tiny surveillance cameras, including some hidden in the bridges of glasses.

I visited China's largest surveillance tech expo with @QianerLiu this week held once every two years in Shenzhen - "the world security capital." A thread & our story about China's latest new surveillance craze: emotion recognition https://t.co/6hWTQlZONg 1/ pic.twitter.com/jrsqKfOysg

- Sue-Lin Wong eaec^3 (@suelinwong) November 1, 2019