Many consider the Macau region of China to be the gambling capital of Earth, so — according to Bloomberg — in an effort to improve bank security (while also allowing China to monitor how their money moves in and out of the country), they are upgrading all 1,200 of their ATMs with facial recognition cameras. Here’s how they’re going to work: a user wanting to make a withdrawal will need to enter their PIN, followed by staring into the facial recognition lens for six seconds for identity verification. So, cool (in terms of technology) AND creepy (in terms of privacy and liberty) at the same time, but it is THEIR money and THEY want to track it NOW!
But why, WHY, is this happening. Well, it appears that roughly $816 BILLION (with a “B”) of Chinese money flows out of the country by private citizens and officials without the government’s consent. Along with that, it also appears that it’s stupidly easy to move money out of Macau since people can withdraw the cash to gamble, place some easy bets, and then send the rest of the money out. Based on that, it’s probably fairly simple to launder money and allow large banking institutions to commit fraud.
But still, a LITTLE bit creepy…
[Thanks Bloomberg]
