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👮 AI-powered police glasses with facial recognition are being tested in China
Surveillance cameras have long been part of city life. Now the camera and access to databases are moving directly onto an officer’s face, enabling real-time identification and background checks on the spot.
👮 AI-powered police glasses with facial recognition are being tested in China
It sounds like cyberpunk, but surveillance cameras have long been a routine part of city life. In Moscow today, for example, it is difficult to find a place beyond Big Brother’s watchful gaze. Now the camera and access to databases are moving directly onto an officer’s face.
China plans to use smart glasses for street patrols, traffic management, and checking people in crowds. The work is done not through a monitor in a control room or a remote data centre, but on the spot: the officer looks at someone and the system immediately displays a prompt. It amounts to a live identity and background check. Interestingly, both the software and the devices themselves are developed entirely by Chinese companies.
Similar scenarios have already appeared in Russia. Astra Consulting, for example, demonstrated AR glasses for Rostransnadzor inspectors with access to Ministry of Internal Affairs and traffic police databases. Skolkovo startup Digital Inspector is working in the same direction, developing solutions for video analytics, monitoring, violation recording, and real-time prompts for security personnel.
This is not yet an augmented-reality revolution. On most of these devices, the AR interface is modest: a short text prompt, status, number, or simple marker in the user’s field of view. Sometimes information is displayed to only one eye 👁
The important conclusion is different.
The scenario of “looking someone up in real time” is becoming increasingly common. It used to rely on infrastructure: large systems operating somewhere in the background.
Now that logic is becoming closer, more local, and more personal. We are gradually moving from city-wide surveillance to devices carried by individual officers—from an abstract “Comrade Major” in a server room to an interface directly in front of the eyes of the person standing opposite you 🚨
Welcome to the brave new world!