The Chinese government has appointed artificial intelligence (AI) firm SenseTime to lead a working group in charge of drawing up national standards for the facial recognition industry, SenseTime said in a statement published Wednesday on its WeChat public account.

The group will work to standardize the research and development of facial recognition products and ensure it is applied safely and consistently, SenseTime said.

The working group, which also includes Tencent, Xiaomi, and Ant Financial, is overseen by the National Information Technology Standardization Technical Committee (NITS), which is in turn affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It will also promote the further formulation of facial recognition standards at an international level, the statement said.

Caixin was unable to contact NITS for comment.

Facial recognition technology is used in a wide range of sectors in China, from surveillance to electronic payments and tourism. But it has also sparked controversy due to its alleged role in identity theft and data leakage.

In a recent high-profile pushback against facial recognition technology, a university professor in eastern China sued a wildlife park for allegedly storing his personal data without asking for consent, thereby violating consumer rights laws.

Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com)

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