Chinese tech giant Alibaba is offering business users software tools that automatically identify Uighurs, according to a new report. Alibaba said the feature would only be used for testing. Separately, huawei, the Chinese telecommunications equipment company, resigned after it was revealed that it was testing software that could help police identify and monitor Uighurs.
In a report released Wednesday, IPVM, a U.S. -based monitoring industry research and publishing group, said it found that Alibaba’s cloud Shield content security system included guidance on localized deployment of facial recognition interfaces that described how its software could be used to detect Uighurs in images and videos.
According to a web page archived by the IPVM, Aliyun Shield can detect a variety of face attributes, including whether a person wears glasses, whether they smile, whether they are Asian or ethnic minority. In terms of ethnic identity, the guidelines are particularly marked “Uighur” in brackets at the end.
The TECHNOLOGY built into the cloud Shield will allow web platforms that have purchased the service to tag or set alerts for photos or videos containing Uyghur faces, the IPVM report said. For example, if a Uighur is livestreamingonline, Aliyun’s AI will automatically identify the Uighur’s face and mark the video, which the platform can censor or delete before it attracts more attention.
IPVM researcher Donald Maye told VOA it is not clear whether or how Alibaba’s customers are using the tool, but he said: “To put it in the larger context, it is disconcerting that we know these technologies are backed by the Chinese government. So it reflects the broader ubiquity and near-normalisation of the use of this kind of video surveillance and technology in China.”
He added: “I think what’s special about [Alibaba] in this case is that it’s one of the largest companies in the world, but it’s publicly launching this software on its website.”
Alibaba is considered the largest cloud computing provider in China and the fourth largest in the world, and trades on the Stock exchanges in New York and Hong Kong. The IPVM said the Uighur technology is not mentioned on Alibaba’s English and global websites, suggesting that the feature is likely to be used only for Chinese customers.
The Chinese government’s treatment of ethnic uighurs and other minorities in recent years has drawn strong international condemnation. Chinese authorities are believed to have detained nearly a million Uighurs in “re-education camps,” using forced labor and extensive surveillance of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang using technologies such as facial recognition. Human rights groups have accused Beijing of committing “genocide” against the Uighurs.
Beijing denies the allegations, saying it does not force anyone to enter what it calls vocational education centres, and that its policies in Xinjiang help boost employment and combat terrorism and extremism.
Alibaba is not the first Chinese company to be revealed to have developed automatic Uighur identification technology. In its report Wednesday, the IPVM said it found that another Cloud service provider in China, Kingsoft Cloud, also offers facial recognition technology that can identify Uighurs. Jinshan Cloud went public in Nasnak in May. In a separate report last week, the IPVM said Huawei had tested a piece of software developed by Chinese facial recognition company Kuang Yang Technology on its cloud system that allows surveillance cameras to identify Uighurs in crowds and automatically alert the police. In November, It was revealed that Hikvision was selling surveillance equipment that could automatically identify Uighurs.
Tommy Zwicky, huawei’s senior vice-president of marketing communications in Denmark, said he had resigned following reports that the company had been involved in testing artificial intelligence software that identifies Uighurs. He told the media that he was resigning “because of the way the Uighur issue has been handled”.
Edward Brewster, huawei’s head of media communications in the UK, also said on Tuesday that he would leave the company next month. But in his departure statement on LinkedIn, he made no mention of the face-recognition software issue.
Antoine Griezmann, a French soccer star who had been the face of Huawei’s smartphones, announced that he was ending his relationship with the Chinese company.
The IPVM said the companies had deleted the information when contacted and after receiving requests for comment from the media partners. The relevant Webpage of Alibaba is no longer accessible, saying “Sorry, this content is being updated, please visit later.”
Alibaba said in a statement to the media that the software would only be used for testing. “To mention race is to refer to a trait or kinetic energy that is used in a test environment as we explore our technological capabilities. It has never been used outside of a test environment.”
In a statement, Mr. Jin said the software tools were never sold and could not distinguish uighurs. The statement said the software tool’s “race-based labeling is inappropriate and inconsistent with Jinshan cloud’s policies and values,” had removed “misleading products” and would be subject to full review.
Huawei also said in response to relevant reports that the software is only for testing, not for any real applications, and that Huawei only offers generic products for testing. Megatron says its products focus on personal safety, not monitoring any particular group.
Even so-called “tests” cannot appear out of thin air, says the IPVM’s Mr Meyer. “There’s a lot of thought involved in developing this software,” he says. Someone will be sent to work on the project. It’s not like someone just typed the word Uighur and suddenly went to develop software. It requires planning, it requires thinking, it requires action. In particular, it’s a product, it’s a function of the product.”
The latest findings are likely to put Alibaba, along with several other Chinese companies, under international pressure.
Over the past year, the US government has added dozens of Chinese entities to its sanctions list for their involvement in Beijing’s human rights abuses against Muslim minorities, including Hikvision, a maker of video surveillance equipment, iFLYtek, an artificial intelligence company, and Kuang Yang Technology.
In November, President Trump issued an executive order banning Americans from investing in Chinese companies that the U.S. Defense Department lists as having links to the Chinese military. The current list includes 35 Chinese companies, including Huawei, Hikvision and SMIC. A number of index companies in the US and Europe, including Nasdaq, have announced that they will remove Chinese companies from their indices.
Earlier this month, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Jim McGovern (D., FLA.) wrote to Intel and Nvidia asking for information about selling chips to Chinese companies. There have been reports that chips sold by the two companies have been used to monitor Uighurs.
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