China is using facial recognition to track people in Muslim-majority areas

In something that seems like it’s out of 1984, the country is using facial recognition technologies in the region of Xinjiang, reports Bloomberg. Xinjiang is a region in the western part of the country that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan and is home to about 10 million Muslim ethnic Uighurs. A person familiar with the project said China’s facial-recognition systems will alert authorities when select people go more than 1,000 feet beyond so-called “safe areas”–areas which include their homes and places of work.