At Canon Information Technology’s Beijing office employees must smile into the AI camera before entering the office.

At Canon Innovation Technology’s Beijing office, the workplace management system relies on AI-powered facial recognition instead of key cards. Last year, the Japanese tech giant incorporated a “smiling face technology” into the system that makes it mandatory for employees to smile into the camera to qualify for entry. Canon Innovation is a subsidiary of Canon, Inc (TYO: 7751). (Business Insider)

Intrusive “emotion-detecting” technology

In October 2020, Canon launched its “Jiachuang Space” IT solution. Addressing the enterprise marketplace, it is a smart workplace solution that manages attendance, access control, temperature modulation, guest registration, and document printing.

“Smiling face” is an element of this IT solution, and is meant to bring “joy and health to everyone in the post-epidemic era,” according to Canon’s launch announcement. It is, therefore, being deployed in Canon’s Beijing office.

Commenting to Nikkei, some Canon employees complained that the compulsion to smile into the system was intrusive and uncalled for.

On Weibo, one user said:  “So now the companies are not only manipulating our time but also our emotions.”

Canon’s comment to Nikkei:  “We have been wanting to encourage employees to create a positive atmosphere by utilizing this system with the smile detection setting ‘on’,” said a spokesperson for Canon China. “Mostly, people are just too shy to smile, but once they get used to smiles in the office, they just keep their smiles without the system which created a positive and lively atmosphere.”

Emotion detection tested on Uighurs in China

Last month, the BBC revealed that an elaborate, AI-based system using facial recognition was being used on Uighurs in the Xinjiang province of China for detecting states of emotion on their faces.

A software engineer who claimed to have installed these systems in Chinese police stations said subjects were placed in “restraint chairs” with their wrists and ankles locked in place by metal restraints.

Emotion detection cameras that had been trained to recognize and analyze changes in facial expressions, even skin pores, were then placed about 3 meters from the subject.

During interrogation these systems were used for “pre-judgment without any credible evidence,” the engineer claimed.

Related Story:   China Testing AI-Powered Emotion Detection on Uighurs (BBC)