After faces, China is moving quickly to identify people by their voices

In China, officials and companies have deployed facial-recognition technology to a degree uncommon elsewhere, both commercially and--more controversially--for widespread surveillance. The government of the southwestern Guizhou province, Tsinghua University, and Beijing-based d-Ear Technologies announced they are collaborating on a pilot project that will link unique voice features to people's national ID information and create, maintain, and secure a database of "voiceprints." China's digitally-connected population has enabled the government to track people in many forms, such as using facial recognition to prevent toilet paper theft and jaywalking. But d-Ear (link in Chinese) and other companies say that voice recognition is a better and cheaper way to verify identity. Cheng Ge, marketing director of d-Ear, founded in 2002, told Quartz this week that the d-Ear pilot would be similar to social media giant Tencent's December pilot program in the southern city of Guangzhou, which allowed people to use facial recognition within its all-purpose WeChat app to create a digital version of their government-issued ID card.