The local authorities of Guangzhou have begun work on a project that will allow local residents to use the popular Chinese instant messenger WeChat instead of ID. Now residents of the city and its surrounding area Willy-nilly will have to develop new technologies and install the program itself on the smartphone reports the Sout China Morning Post.
The city government has launched a pilot project, the essence of which is to create a virtual identity, which can be an alternative to conventional identity card. The identification of a person will be using WeChat. In the first wave of testing will be residents of the district of Nansha Islands, and later the pilot project will extend to all local residents.
The WeChat app is able to recognize faces of users, allowing them to login without having to enter usernames and passwords. This function of the government is going to use as an alternative to regular passports. The facial recognition system will eliminate the possibility of forgery and will allow citizens to quickly book rooms in hotels and quickly get access to government services, bypassing passport control, with its long identity checks.
The pilot project engaged experts of the company Tencent and the team of the research Institute of the Ministry of public security of China.
At the moment, WeChat messenger has about a billion active users, so the transformation of an ordinary program for everyday communication in the state identification system will cover a large part of the population.
The Chinese will be able to use WeChat messenger.
Vyacheslav Larionov