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<p>Facial recognition technology (FRT) has become a central component of China’s “smart policing” strategy, promising greater efficiency, improved crime detection, and enhanced public safety. However, its rapid adoption has outpaced the development of clear legal frameworks and oversight mechanisms, creating operational challenges and ethical concerns. Using an ethnographic approach in an eastern coastal city in China, this study explores how FRT reshapes policing practices and highlights its dilemma as both a tool for efficiency and a source of ethical tension. The findings reveal key issues: FRT’s strengths and limitations, resource dilemmas behind surveillance blind spots, accuracy challenges and misidentification risks, contradictions in permission management, and ethical conflicts between security and privacy. FRT’s deployment also accelerates surveillance normalization, embedding pervasive monitoring into daily life while reinforcing state control at the cost of individual rights.&#xa0;This study highlights the urgent need for regulatory clarity, enhanced oversight, and ethical safeguards. By centering on grassroots officers’ perspectives, it offers critical insights and policy recommendations to balance technological advancement with public trust and rights protection in China’s digital policing future.</p>

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Dilemmas of Facial Recognition Technology in Chinese Digital Policing: A Qualitative Exploration

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年11月25日

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  • Xinyuan Chen,
  • Mengliang Dai

摘要

Facial recognition technology (FRT) has become a central component of China’s “smart policing” strategy, promising greater efficiency, improved crime detection, and enhanced public safety. However, its rapid adoption has outpaced the development of clear legal frameworks and oversight mechanisms, creating operational challenges and ethical concerns. Using an ethnographic approach in an eastern coastal city in China, this study explores how FRT reshapes policing practices and highlights its dilemma as both a tool for efficiency and a source of ethical tension. The findings reveal key issues: FRT’s strengths and limitations, resource dilemmas behind surveillance blind spots, accuracy challenges and misidentification risks, contradictions in permission management, and ethical conflicts between security and privacy. FRT’s deployment also accelerates surveillance normalization, embedding pervasive monitoring into daily life while reinforcing state control at the cost of individual rights. This study highlights the urgent need for regulatory clarity, enhanced oversight, and ethical safeguards. By centering on grassroots officers’ perspectives, it offers critical insights and policy recommendations to balance technological advancement with public trust and rights protection in China’s digital policing future.